Gorillaz: L a s t L i v i n g S o u l s
by Nice Tambourine
Summary: Er. T for language, dipping into M, I think, later on, for sexy content. 2D love story. Everyone'll be in it, eventually.
1. Prologue: Empty Head

{Hello! Welcome to the first installment of my second series, "L a s t L i v i n g S o u l s". For best quality reading, listen to "A Rat's Nest" (Thom Yorke). Enjoy, and if you're up to it, please rate and comment. Thank you!}

* * *

: : .L a s t . L i v i n g . S o u l s. : :

..

A dream:

We are standing in field of dirt. Puffs of wind spin debris into swelling dust-devils that swell and release. Bits of wrapper flutter to the east. Emptied soda containers roll a curved path past our feet. We surrounded by nighttime, and we are alone.

Then a light begins to glow above us. It is a dusty, LED green. We turn our heads, and we realize we are surrounded by things. They are large things, painted in cheap hues that were, perhaps, colourful once but have faded so completely we cannot differ the colours from one another. The things tower above us like grimy metal giants. Their skins are chipped. Their joins are crusted. Without the light shed from the bulbs decorating them, we would guess they were obsolete. It is the fairground we've seen somewhere before, but cannot remember where.

Wind whistles through their skeletons. We quickly become nervous. Through the looming contraptions, we see a glittering span of inky blackness in the dust and nightscape. We want to go in that direction. Arriving instantly (as one does in a dream), we find ourselves standing in the shadow of an enormous merry-go-round, beyond which stretches an endless inky sea.

A mechanical moaning creaks through the carousel. The wind gives it a slow spin. We become quite frightened in the gaze of a thousand depthless eyes. The ground beneath us shifts. We are riding a chipping porcelain horse. The ride has begun. We're turning. Lights are all about us now: mesmerizing, bright and saccharine. The machine song sings out from within the body of the carousel. We are turning – and turning – and turning…

And suddenly, we are _speeding_. Our porcelain horse has begun an up-and-down motion in terrifyingly quick convulsions. Its eyes are alive and burning, watching our eyes, its mouth open wide in a soundless holler. We hold on for our lives. The noisy landscape burns into a single mass before our eyes, which we cannot close no matter how hard we try.

Something terrible is going to happen, but we cannot stop it. If we fall, we will fly off – if we stay, we will be seized. Its body becomes so large and black and glistening we cannot see. We cannot see and we want everything to stop and be still so we can think, but it cannot stop. We cannot stop it… It rises up… It watches us… It's watching me -

And with a blink, the ride is over. The dream is done.

* * *

..

In the middle of an alley, a little grey ghost floats up to the moon. Its visibility is made possible by the light of the alley's lone streetlamp. The tiny cloud body is rimmed by its honey glow. It wafts skyward until it disappears in the black of the sky, swallowed-up by a giant, starless void.

My eyes linger on the sky and then fall to the light of the lamp. I let the florescent gold burn into my retinas until all the world begins to crawl away, until it's only the light and I. Myself and the light. Me. The light. Me.

The iron door beside me opens with a screech of old metal hinges. A large, fat head pokes out of the space between the door and the wall. Beady eyes search around until they spot me.

"'Oy, kid," says the head, "'Ou comin' in or whah? These faggots are beginnin' t'get anxious."

I scratch my temple and shut my eyes. "Yeah, gimme a minute. I'll be in."

The head nods, crumples into a pudgy grin, and pokes back into the darkness. The door closes with another moan of metal-on-rusty metal.

I heave a heavy sigh, adjust my position against the wall. My hair shifts forward with the movement of my head, making a fortress of fringe. I bend and pick up the small, curvaceous leather case lying at my feet. Contained within the case is the thing that has become my companion through the tribulations of the universe, and the closest I've ever come to a livelihood, an art form, and a successful long-term relationship. It also has a name.

I tuck what's left of my fag between my lips and put the free hand into the pocket of my jacket. Somberly, I bid goodbye to the sky, the lamp, and the memory of the tiny nicotine cloud. I pick myself up off the wall, pull open the giant iron door that smells of old blood, and let it shut behind me.

Time to make some money.

* * *

Oh, god… _air!_

Sweet, fresh gallons of it. It fills my lungs and empties out again, smelling of salt and wind and rain and _fresh things_. There is nothing to compare to the stew of stinks in Erney's Black Hole: a collaboration of lager, old piss, shit, new piss, ciggies, and a multihued spectrum of body odors. Breathing real air after being in _that_ for four hours is enough to make a grown woman cry.

Once I've gotten my fill, I make toward my bike, which is a vintage moped in a beautiful pupil-black. I set myself on the seat and pound my boot to the ignition bar, the shapely case of my instrument strapped securely to my back. The bike purrs darkly and I'm about to pull out when in comes the creaking of a heavy metal door.

"'Old on there, luv." I put both feet onto the ground and see the fat head from earlier emerging from the bar. An enormous spherical stomach trails beneath it.

"I wan'ed t'tank you prop'ley," he drawled, staggering forward, "... fo' yo' services..."

I grimace as his gribbly belly closes in. His bare red head is covered in a thick sheen of sweat.

"Hold on, Earney –"

"No, _'oo_ 'old on!" His black eyes are heavily lidded and seem to be having quite a time of focusing on me, darting to and fro. "I wan'... wan' t'tank 'oo like – " he's interrupted by a small burp " – like a _man!"_

My shoulders slump. Earney Blake, manager of Earney's Black Hole, has been my employer for the last two months. He founded the thumb-sized bar in 1992, after collecting the payment on his mobile home, which he sold to an elderly Arabian couple with eight children. He purchased the building – formerly a liquor shop/ gambling hall/ bingo bar for the Blue Poppy Society – and renovated it with his earnings. In less than a year, it was one the shadiest of pubs in Eastbourne hosting a weekly rotation of entertainment, including the talents of three stand-up comics, a 97-year-old organist, and a scabby young man billed as "The Bottomless Pit".

He halted his advance for a moment and struggled to keep balanced. "Come on, now... Yo shift 'asn't ended yet."

"Yes it has," I retorted. My patience was waning. "Just go back to the bar, please. I can't let you roam around like this."

"'Oo's roamin'? I'm just tryin' to be a –" another belch "- a gen'leman."

His thick head is blotched with red; the bits that aren't are a sickly white. He starts toward me again and I shift my weight. "Honestly, Earney, it's too late for this..."

"Is never too late fo' whah I'm plannin' on doin'..." His meaty bald head splits in a sleepy rendition of what he probably believes to be a sultry grin, "'Oo mi'h wanna stall tha' bi – OOHHF!"

Earney's thin pale lips twist into a tiny, soundless "O". His giant form doubles over and he reaches his meaty hands toward where my boot had stalled in the middle of his trousers. His beady eyes shut tightly in what I imagine is the largest serving of pain his numb brain could register tonight.

I wait for the soft "tuff" of his knees hitting the dirt, the cue to remove my foot. I reignite the ignition, twist the handles and ride into the night. Earney rolls on his side and assumes what I imagine to have been a terribly chubby fetal position.

* * *

Sea air whips my bangs into a frenzy - it feels fantastic. The air is clean, the clouds grey and milky, the dark road split by my headlights. I'm riding my favorite, endless arching turn that runs along a stout stone cliff. Black waves crash below.

My head is heavy with the lateness and a slight throbbing headache. The idea of losing my position at the Hole was grim, which was made grimmer by the realization that as dreadful a place as it was, it'd been my only creative outlet for the last seven weeks. Seven weeks of serenading the drunken outcasts of London; seven weeks of crying things I only half-believed into a mic and hearing myself through really shitty reception; so many hours I'll never regain, drowning in a pool of warm, rancid beer and spittle on the floor, or floating somewhere in the head of a piss-stinking regular, thinking as much about my art as they would the workings of the trade routes of Bosnia. I know well as anyone that they come only for cheap drink and to watch the movements of a woman's body; my poetry is above them.

The turn begins to even. The stone of the cliff ends and bricks begin. Traffic lights blink twenty blocks ahead.

The sound of the sea begins to fade as the tide swells outward, and suddenly, my skin prickles. The throbbing in my head is replaced by a sense of forewarning, though I wish it wasn't. It isn't often that my senses pick up oncoming danger, but when they do, I'd always rather push forward than turn back. So I keep on riding.

- until I feel the turbulence, followed by a hopeless 'PAK!' of the engine and a sober slowing of my wheels. I come to a complete stop in the middle of the pitch-dark road, darker now that my headlight's gone out. I wait a moment, not wanting to accept the situation. Once I do, I swing my leg off the seat and give the piping a kick slightly softer than what I'd given Earney.

"_You moldy piece of chicken shit, you!"_ I holler at it, watching as it topples to its side.

My neck hairs stand on end in the silence. Something moves in.

"'Ello, luv."

My breath catches and I attempt running for it, but my escape is denied by two thick forearms. My feet lift from the ground. The acidic stench of alcohol, B.O. and... something I can't identify monopolizes my nostrils. The heat of Earney's stomach feels disgusting pressed against my back. "Lemme go, you tubby bastard!!"

He exhales, chuckling darkly into the canal of my ear. My binds are too tight for even the slightest of movements... and I realize his strength is strangely great, drunk as he may be. I begin to wonder how he'd gotten here.

"You migh' as well stop kickin' about," he snarls, "Yo' outnumba'd."

He turns and shows me four men standing in the alley from which he'd come. Each of them was as large, if not larger than Earney himself, and terribly smug. They were tattooed, laughing, elbowing one another. I realize then how deeply in shit I was.

"I said, _let me go!!"_

I attempt to plant my heel into the spot that should still be ringing him with pain, but this does nothing but increases the group's enjoyment.

"Sorry, luv," Earney growls, bringing me farther into the alley. His diction no longer drawls drunkenly. In fact, he's eerily sober.

The men close in. I shut my eyes.

"'Ey. Wot's 'appening n'ere?"

* * *

Earney's grip loosens. "'Oo's tha'?"

I open my eyes. The men have stopped to look over Earney's shoulder. Earney's head is turned.

"Righ', well - I was wond'rin if tha' gurl 'oo've got there was awrigh', 'cuz she's been screaming 'er 'ead off fo' ages."

The men's expressions glaze over with annoyance. Earney turns toward the alley's entrance, and I spot a thin shape is silhouetted in the light of the moon.

"_Woh'_?" The men move in.

"Well... I suggest you put 'er down, or - _ahhh_."

The threat is interrupted by the fist of one of the men. They take turns pounding the intruder, grunting with each smack. The stranger whimpers with every hit, and it's something of a grunt-symphony: smack, grunt, whimper, smack.

The pummeling had begun and was concluded in the totality of thirty-five seconds. "Right, lads," says Earney, rejuvenating the crushing grip on my torso, "Fun's over now."

"Wasn't any fun in tha'..." whines one of the men.

"Let's get on with it, now!" Earney was impatient. I let go a sigh as the men turned from the bruised body of what had almost been my savior.

Then, by the will of some sort of Providence, there came a wailing cry from down the road

"Oi! Shit!" The tailing man of the lot froze, his eyes watching the road, "Is the fuzz!"

The men's expressions animate with fright. Earney gave a low, guteral growl. "Aw, _hell!"_

I felt his body twist slightly, and next I know I'm crashing to the ground. My left side stings with the collision, and I cry out.

The men shout at one another, filling the alley with hollers and fast footsteps that intertwine with the nearing siren scream. They file out of the alley, but Earney stays. He looks down at me with eyes lit with moonlight. I saw in them nothing I'd seen there before, and for the first time in a long while, I feel terrified.

He tears his gaze away and follows his lackeys out of the alley. I watch him leave, steps over the body of the hero-turned-pile of bruised meat. I shut my eyes again, this time in a swell of relief, and listen as the last of the voices are swallowed by the siren's cry. I breathe heavily and wait for the siren to pass – apparently without taking notice of the overturned bike on the road – and take my time picking myself up.

My ribs and chest are sore from the constriction. My side aches something awful. The throbbing in my skull had returned twofold, but I knew mine was nothing next to the aches and pains of my almost-rescuer. I call out, "'Ey, kid. You alright?"

Well, I knew he wasn't. He's still draped in the dark, but as I near, the milky clouds begin to reopen.

"Oi. Kid." I kneel at his side and place my palm on him. Shake him, gently. "Come on, now."

The clouds part in a gust of wind. The moonlight brightens so suddenly I'm forced to squint. From across the road, the black sheen of my bike catches it and winks like a low star. The boy lets out a pitchy, lilting groan and slowly rolls onto his back. My eyes fill with the image of his face.

His face...

Oh, _Jesus!_

* * *

_{PS - Plastic Beach is absolutely bangin'!!_

_ Chapter 2 to come soon~ Thank you for reading!}_


	2. Daylight Hallucinations

{Aha! I've got you! An OC! ... I really hope that doesn't turn anyone off from this series! I promise to make her as 3-dimensional as I can! O x 0

PS - This part goes quite well with "Bricks" by Tunng. Enjoy!}

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..

A memory:

Pleats, spots, freckly cheeks, scabby knees and all that sort of thing.

Nestled a valley somewhere in the wettest corner of Crawley, there stands two adjourning fortresses – great giants of slab and stone. The westernmost tower contained one of the largest and most mediocre populations of young girls ever to be taught under the name of Saint Josephine Jaguar, the Patron Saint of Crumbly Things. Never was there a more properly named institution, as a great many parts of Saint J.J. were cracked, soggy, and quite crumbly indeed.

The young ladies taught within this institution were of nothing short of slightly proper, almost always punctual, and very nearly the most decently educated young ladies in all the land. These blooming blossoms were the pride of St. J.J., as had been their mothers, grandmothers, great-great-great grandmothers and so on – as long as you were the _right_ sort of blossom.

It's lunchtime. There had been rain earlier – there was always rain – but the stony skies had parted, and now a bit of graying sun peaked timidly through coal-lined, cotton clouds. It was terribly drafty in the classrooms of St J.J.'s, even on the days when the rain wasn't absolutely pissing, and the outside air was nearly bearable to walk around in without freezing your peach fuzz off.

And yet, the fresh, blooming buds of Class A-2, B-8 and C-10 thru 18 could not be found frolicking in the frozen springtime sun, braiding each others' pigtails nor playing any rousing matches of Kick 'Round the Students on Scholarship Funds. No, they were, in fact, _inside_, even on such a gloriously frigid afternoon as this - all forty-eight of them shoving against one another, exerting girly force through bony elbows and sticky forearms, doing whatever they could for a chance to peer from the best seat in school.

In Saint J's, you have the girls who compare pedigrees, can count their parents' Cadillacs on two hands, keep their fathers' credit cards forever hot, and whose mothers cackled themselves sore with tellings of their daughters' badges earned and their trophies snatched to their stick fingered friends at afternoon tea.

Then you had the girls whose fathers had to sell a hundred-and-eighty-seven antique magic balls and seventy-seven supposedly-possessed pieces of bedroom furniture to pay for their daughters' uniforms and textbooks, and the difference between these two kinds of girls was never made so clear than at lunchtime. Those described formally were the ones pushing themselves to the window, noses squashed against the rain-cooled glass, bosoms flushed with anticipation; the other, seated seven desks away, with a large book, sticky legs a face freckly enough to be criminal.

"Ohmygod, is Greggory," say the blooming buds in breathy pitches, "Kill me now, oh please, just let me die."

"Oh _weely_, Joannah, 'ee's not at awl a catch! Jeremy's _so_ the be'ah – just _look_ at 'im!"

I press the crevasse of the big black novel I'm pretending to read against the tip of my nose. Closing myself in.

"I could _die, _really I could!"

"Same 'ere, luv, I can't _stand_ it, I can't!"

The twin to Saint J. Jaguar, standing like a great relic of the decaying and depressed a few mere meters from ours, stood St. Wilfred's School for the Dim and Dimwitted. It was from here that, without fail, the lot of them came trotting like gangly cuts of meat, fags pinched in their squinty little faces and their hair all greased.

From the fourth floor of St. J's, the bloomers gazed on, deciding on which cut was choicest.

"'Ere comes Evan! Oh, I could just _die_, I could!"

Oh, please do.

"Did joo see tha'? I think 'ee's lookin' at me, 'ee is!"

"Bollocks, Susan! 'Ee in't looking at no one."

"Oh, shut _up_, will you?"

"Both 'o you, shut it! It's _'im!!_"

"Oh, it _isn't_!"

"It _is!"_

All of the sudden, the force of the shovings increases noticeably. The stragglers in the back struggle hopelessly against the front mosh.

"Oh, just _shoot_ me, Lizabeth!"

I attempt to focus on my text but see naught but blobs of inky black.

"They won't stop, y'know," says someone at the desk to my immediate left, "You know they won't."

I keep on with feigned interest in the blobby print. My best mate, Sholeen, rests her thin elbow on the top of her desk.

She kept me company, really, as I did her. She hadn't had the damning bad luck of having been sent here on a scholarship like me, but had transferred here in the middle of the year from London. Her high standards and maturity-that-bordered-on-snobbery coupled with my hatred for pitchy schoolgirl shenanigans of any kind. The sort of thing happening at the window, for example, turned both our mouths sour. Ironically, that sort of thing was what kept us friends.

"Why don't you just get on with your life, Yoo? Don't let it carry on getting in your way."

She enjoyed giving me little talks like this, like a mum or a teacher. It was the bit of her that I didn't care for, and my nerves were shot as they were. She was making it worse.

"Oh, look at 'im! Just _look_ at 'im!" A young woman with thick thighs and unreasonably bushy hair had shoved her way through the gaggle of girls. "'Ee's _fit_, 'ee is!"

"Wot you mean, get in my way?" I growled into the pages.

Sholeen tossed her dark corkscrew curls behind her. "I mean, the way they impress themselves on you. If you were honest about how you felt about things, you'd be so much happier."

"Do y'think that hair is weely nat'ral?" says a girl with spot scabs.

I felt my knuckles turn white. "_Wot?" _

"I just mean the way you hide how you really feel about everything… About _him_." She blinks her long lashes and takes a breath. "I see the way you watch him, Yoo. If you'd just be honest for once in your life - "

I'd had enough of this. I smack my hardback onto the desktop with enough force to crush a walnut. It even had some of the window-suckers' heads turning at me.

I put a foot on my chair and propped myself up with it. By the time both feet are on the top of the desk, every one of the oglers was ogling me. Sholeen stared up at me as though I'd just eaten a live pig.

I take a breath, poke a finger at them and shout at them all, "LISTEN, 'OO LOT! IF YOU FINK I'M EVEN A BIT LIKE ANY O' YOU TIT-WAGGLERS, YOU'RE MISTAKEN. I SWEAR ON JOSEPHINE JAGUAR'S WOBBLY CHINS, I WILL FOREVER AND ON HATE ALL OF YOU, YO' STUPID THOUGHTS, YO' STUPID HAIR AND, ABOVE ALL, THA' TOSSPOT FAGGOT, STUART POT!"

* * *

..

_Ooh… Shiit_… What did I _have_ last night…?

Oh, god, ah… Where's the bottle – there it is. Oh, Christ, I took it to _bed_? Shit, I'm like… fecking… _Courtney Love_. I _hate_ Courtney Love.

Ahh, alright - gotta get a lemon. Lemon always helps with this sort of – _aagh_, Christ, _why are the sodding blinds open!? _Ah, Jesus, this is awful!! _What happened last night!?_

… Oh, what _did_ happen last night? There was something terrible, I remember, but that's all. God, it must have been something really awful for me to get like this again. There was nothing I hated myself more for than drinking 'till dawn; I felt like such a waste of flesh when I did, and I always paid the price in the morning, as I surely was now.

Alright, one foot at a time now. Get off your bum; go toward the door. Open it, tha'sa good girl. Alright, now, kitchen – where're my lemons? The only thing that ever gets me out of the worst of the morning gripes is a quick n' hard* shot of sour citrus.

I reach for the handle of my regulation cooler. Every honk and screech of morning traffic from outside my windows is like a bit of dental floss slicing through my poor brain. God, I feel like such _shit_. It'd been a while since I've finished a bottle of anything as late as I had last night… _Why did I do it?_ It was like repressing memory with unabashed hangover pain: whenever I tried replaying the previous evening it'd start up again, raw and flesh-peeling.

As soon as I lay my eye on one of the few dodgy lemons peaking out the back of the fridge, I hear a groggy groan. Coming from the sofa. In the living space.

Oh. Oh…

* * *

..

It's as if I'd disgruntled some deity. Stars were aligned to cause me constant, scathingly ironic strife. God has his great, florescent thumb on me… guess it's too late to start atoning.

There he lay: bleeding, pummeled, bruising, his limbs bent at odd angles, his lips slightly parted, reveling a pair of nonexistent teeth and the tip of a swollen tongue. He was pale as a ghost in the milky moonlight. His left eye was blackening. His smooth cheekbones looked purplish and sore.

His blueberry hair had gotten spiky since I'd seen it.

"_Mary and Joseph..._" I taste something awful. Inside my head, there raged a dull tsunami swirling round all the things I'd tried to bury in the catacombs of my childhood recollections. Among all the things I wanted to stay buried deepest, the existence of this boy was up in the top five.

He gave a little moan and a twitch, then began taking even, steady breaths. Well, he's breathing; that's good. Having him die after an attempt to rescue me would most _definitely_ take the piss.

With a great heave, I take him beneath the arms and prop him up against me… which causes me to go all red in the face. Fecking 'ell.

The bike's still where I left it, but I figure it's worth giving another go – there isn't any choice. I've got him on my back now, and I realize for his absurd height (he grew quite a bit since St. Wilfred), he's surprisingly lightweight. His bruised, blue-topped head is uncomfortably close to mine. It gave off this scent that was entirely… _not_ unpleasant. In fact, I know it has a name, the smell, but I can't remember what it was.

"Alright, up we go," I say as I bend down, pick up the bike, and prop it up again – all while trying to keep Stu on my back and his limbs from dragging on the asphalt. I sit down and shut my eyes. _Please work,_ I pray to myself, _pleeeease work!_

Stu's left hand twitches. I pull on the handlebars, and I'm greeted by a great roar of the engine.

"Oh, sweet Jesus," I say, almost certain now that this spot of good luck would only last me until the next misfortune, which, I imagine, would come soon, seeing as Stu showed no sign of coming round.

The moon had gone and hidden in the clouds again, but by this time I'd gotten the headlights on, so I didn't need it. Stu's quiet exhaling kept brushing past my ear. It was making me feel terribly ill at ease.

I'm pleased to say there was no sign of Earney or his fat cronies. They must have really booked it.

"Alright, then," I say, and with Stu's long, spindly body partly dragging against the ground, I take off at a quick pace on my motorbike.

As the intersection nears, I note the combination of sensations in me: grief, panic, embarrassment, a bit of relief for being near electric lights and inhabited houses again overshadowed by utter exhaustion, all wrapped up with a warm slice of spoilt nostalgia. I realize my body is so absolutely drained, it's taking all my strength to keep from falling forward beneath Stu's slight weight. The nearest hospital was at _least _twenty miles from here; I knew I couldn't make it there without collapsing myself. It was quite obvious he needed quite a bit of medical attention, but for all it's worth, I can positively say I don't feel the least bit of pity for this stupid bag of bruised skin. It was _his_ fault for being in the entirely _wrong_ place at the entirely _wrong _time. And how is it even possible for his and my paths to intersect at this point in our lives? Why can't fate just keep its meddling paws out of my life? Why couldn't Stu and his stupid self just leave me the hell alone! _Why was he here_, in Eastbourne, when I'd thought for sure I'd left him in Crawley? _Why do these sorts of things always happen?_

Well. Alright. There was no point in pussyfooting around the situation. I had to make a decision: either, a) Dump stupid Stu-Pot on the side of the road and let fate have him; b) Attempt driving in the state I was in through another barren street after what had happened a little while ago with Earney and his lot in order to get to the hospital; or c) the one I dreaded but needed the most.

I decide on C: Taking him home. The pillock.

* * *

I've forgotten my headache now. Oh, _goooooddd, _it was all back to me now, even the bit with me dragging myself and Stu up the stairs, feigning patience when Mrs. Dollard from Floor 2 asked me what I was doing and if I'd like a biscuit, tossing Stu on the sofa, opening the fridge, and immediately downing the bottle of beer I'd been trying to conserve. I suppose I would have remembered it all sooner or later.

And then it spoke: "Was goin' on?"

The voice made me jump. High and stringy. It was a miracle he'd made it through the night. I'm both relieved and upset by that.

I don't reply, at first, I'm so surprised. That everything that had happened last night _really _happened was disorienting.

He speaks again: "Is anyone 'ere?"

I sort of bury my face in my hands. I hear the sofa springs as he gets off them. _Oh, Mother of God, what's he going to say?_ I'm thinking, _What's he going to think when he sees me? _

He's seen me now, I know it. The kitchen lead directly into the living space; there wasn't any separating wall. It was a cheap flat, after all.

I put my elbows on the counter and wait for him to speak again. But he doesn't. So I do.

"Stuart… Listen. I didn't know what to do last night, and I know I probably should have taken you t –"

I don't finish. I'd taken myself out of my hands, and I'd looked at him. I really, _really _looked at him. All 6'-something of him. And of all the peculiarities he'd gained since our teenhood, two things were unquestionably the most apparent.

Actually, it was the _lack_ of two things.

I feel myself take a set of actions, most of which involve putting my hands over my mouth and screaming this sort of weird, half-heard whimper, and then trying to turn around, which causes my right hip to smash into the ledge of the counter. I cover my face with my hands again and I put my head down, and I stay there.

"Are you awright?" he says.

I sniff, and swallow a lump that had found its way in my throat. I speak through my hands. I'm shaking. "Eyes."

He pauses, and says, "Wot?"

"_Your eyes_," I say again. He pauses a second time, and I feel him shift his weight.

"Wot about them?"

_What about them?!_ My hip's throbbing. I turn my head to the other side to uncover my mouth. "They're _missing!"_

"No, they aren't!" He sounds offended. "They're still here! They're just squished to the back. I can still see and everyfing!"

I straighten myself up, and I look at him again. Standing in my kitchen, he looks like a tall, bony ghoul. In the holes where his eyes should be, there were instead two manhole-like voids. I couldn't believe there were any eyes in there at all.

He was sort of… I dunno. Dapper, I s'pose, when he was in school. His hair was always really well-slicked and his face was sparsely spotted, which, comparatively to the other boys, was quite good. He hadn't any of the bags he had now beneath his eyes – eyes that were most definitely present when he was a teenager, I'll assure you that – and he actually seemed paler than I remembered him. His face was surely quite bruised, and I noticed a thin red line etched across his left arm. He was wearing something I'd seen posh guys down in town wear: pipe-cleaner jeans that made his bony legs look even bonier, his dirtied knees more knobbly. His T-shirt was definitely white once, but after last's night squabble was rather dirtied with all manner of smudges and stains. He had overall straps, but neither of them were actually on his shoulders; they hung past his hips and against his thighs. The edges of tattoos could be seen on each arm from beneath his shirtsleeves. He had on a pair of nice-looking brown boots with pointed toes. I like those boots.

"Do you remember me, Stu?"

Silence that had fallen thick over us shattered when I'd said this. I hadn't really meant to say that, exactly. I was really rather terrified by the black hole-eyes. They were piercing, dark as there were, and morbidly hypnotizing. But somehow, that slipped out.

Stuart Pot raised a thick eyebrow over his left hole, and said, "Not weely, actually, no. Do you know me?"

I wasn't expecting that. I was actually a bit taken aback. "_Really_? You don't recognize me at all?"

His brows gather closer and he tips his head. I nearly wretch when I realize it was… endearing… the way he did it. Even with those eyes as jarring as they were.

"No… No, I can't say I do. Should I?"

I realize then, with his eye holes watching me as they did, that he _wouldn't_ recognize me. He couldn't. The girls of J. Jaguar and the boys of St. Wilfred's were completely separated. Only the truly brave-hearted attempted sneaky meetings, who paid for it when the school nuns caught them. The only times we every really interacted with one another was at school dances. Being the way I was, I had never attended them. He was right not to know who I am. It still stung a little, though.

"Oh," I say, "Yeah. That's alright. We never really met, I guess. Forget I said anything."

"Oh, alright then," says Stu, giving his stomach an itch.

And suddenly it occurs to me, once all the shock and confusion had worn away, that having this conversation in my kitchen with a guy who hadn't any idea who I was but who I knew and remembered quite well after having no proper introduction was incredibly, excruciatingly awkward. Not to mention it was terribly drafty in here.

"Are you alright?" I say. It seemed like the thing to ask, seeing how beaten he looked.

He looks up, as if surprised I'd said something. His bushy eyebrow rose again. "Yeah, I'm awright. Still a bit knackered, though. It was awful sleeping on tha' sofa. My feet stuck out at the end. Terribul circulation. And I think I've gone and forgot my meds in my flat… Tha's not going to do me a bit of good. You wouldn't 'appen t'ave any Brain-a-Bloc, would you?"

I can't say anything, but I blink. None of that was at all what I was expecting him to say. Something about how he could barely think for his eyes being blown out, or that he couldn't stand much longer for all the hits he'd taken, or… or _anything _about his eyes!! Or how he'd gotten here at all!

"N-no… I don't have any of that," is what I say.

"Oh, tha's alright. It's bloody expensive, in'it. And I s'pose I could jus' pop round to my room and get them. Best be quick about it, too. I can already feel a real rager comin' on. Are you hungry at awl?"

Am I _what?_ "Am I _hungry_, you said?"

"Yeh, I've bought loads of stuff for the trip and there's no way I can eat it awl, anyway. Don't know why I bought so much. In fact, I don't know why I bought it at all. So if you'd like any of it, you can 'ave it. Stuff like chips and crisps and the like. Nuffing very substantial though. Do you like Zongoes? I've got loads've them."

"… What, are you… mental?" _He can't be serious!!_ "Do you think you might have gotten your head hit last night, at all?"

His brows perk up. I can't believe we're still talking in my kitchen, in my flat. "Last night?" he says.

I nearly topple over. "_You were beaten within an inch of your life last night!!"_ I've reached my breaking point. I'm nearly screaming again. "You cannot honestly say you aren't at all sore from any of that, or they really did conk you good! I mean… I mean, aren't you at all curious who I am, or where you are?"

His mouth falls open a little. I visibly see him think. And then he says, "Sort of, yeah. I mean, I don't know who you are or anyfing, but I do sort of know where I am. I mean, we're on King's Street, righ'? This is Wofty Towers?"

"How do you know that?"

"Well, all the flats look the same, don't they?" He eyes my fridge with his cavernous holes. "I'm sure tha's the same fridge as mine, yeh. And yo' floor's the same, too. Plus, the noise outside's just the sort comin' outside mine. So I'm not so curious about tha', 'cus my flat's a few levels down from yours, so I know tha'. But I would like to know who you are, please, yes. Ow…" He puts his palm to his left eye socket, which disappears beneath lids like ordinary eyes. Closed, it doesn't seem like it's missing at all.

My hand grabs the edge of the counter, and I've got to prop myself up with it. He's been _living… _beneath _me. _In _my _flat. How long had this been going on!? I could hardly think at all now! Everything began to swirl around in my head, as if the tsunami'd been called up again, and all over images and feelings and old memories started floating up in front of my mind's eye and back again. Like dustdevils.

"Sorry, I… I think I need a moment."

And then I sort of feel the ground pulling out from under me and the counter becoming taller than I am. There wasn't any tsunami – just two black holes. Then one. Then nothing but black.

* * *

_{ * = That's what she said. Ahaha.}_


	3. Fell Through

{For this, please listen to "Fine" by Mr. Meeble. Thank you, and enjoy~!}

* * *

..

_Time to wake up, luv._

"Ahh, dad… I'm sleepy. Let me sleep."

_C'mon now. You're just lazy._

"I'm not!"

_You don't want to come with?_

"Mm… but I'm still sleepy! Can't you wait a bit?"

_No, I can't. I've got to go now. I'm already late._

"… Wait, no. I'll come with, just hold on a minute."

_I'm already late._

"No, dad, I'm coming!"

_I'll see you later on. Have a lovely day, pet._

"No dad,_wait_!"

_Buh-bye._

"No! Stop!"

"_I'm awake!!"_I lunge forward, and realize I'm not where I thought I was. In fact, I don't recognize where I am at all.

I'm sitting on a bed. Well, no, it's not really a bed; it's a fold out sofa. The sheets are mint-green, and there's a glass of water on the cardboard box to my left.

The light of a beautiful day fed through the curtains of a large window behind me. I turn to look through it, and deduce that I'm on the first floor of Wofty Towers, as I can clearly see the street from where I'm sitting.

The flat is even smaller than mine. The kitchen was directly across from me, and I note that other than two stray banana peels and a half empty milk bottle, there was no sign of it ever being used. A cat-clock with wobbly eyes hung above the sink, frozen. It was looking at me.

The room had obviously been cleaned. Cardboard boxes like the one to my left were everywhere, dotting the floor. They were all shapes and sizes and taped badly. Quite honestly, there were few clues that any lived here at all.

I look down at myself. I'm still clothed and everything, but I'm a little disheveled. But for my jacket, I'm wearing what I wore last night._Ew_. I never changed out of them.

The knob of what I think is the bathroom door starts turning suddenly, and I'm startled out of my pants._He's in here!?_I think,_I've got to get back to my room! This is humiliating!!_

But, of course, it's too late. He's standing the doorframe with another badly-tapped box. I'd actually managed to forget about his eyes. I nearly wee myself when I see them again.

"Hallo!" He grins a gap-toothed grin at me. "Yo' awake!"

I just stare for a moment before trying to smile, too. "Yeah, I am. Thanks. Did you bring me down here?" Stupid question, of course he did.

"Yeh, I did. 'Course it wan't easy, you in the state you were. S'like you were dead or sumfink. Was a bit of a job keepin' yo' head frum bangin' every which way. Wassat you yellin' a moment before?"

"Oh, god, it was. Sorry." My face feels like it's going to implode. He _carried _me down here.I can't even remember what I was screaming about. I vaguely remember doing it.

"S'alright," he says.

I wanted to change the subject, to anything, and it would have been odd if I didn't ask about the boxes. They were obvious. "Are you moving or something?"

He looks round the room. "Oh, yeh, I am actually."

He takes his box and puts it atop a pile of other boxes. The largest one, the one beneath, sighs and sinks into itself. More sheets.

"W-where to?" I'm beginning to feel extremely bare, sitting on his fold out bed. I draw my knees into my chest and wrap my arms round them. Felt like such an intruder, even if he did bring me down here himself. I think of the visual of him doing that and I cringe. S'pose we were even now – him on my sofa and me on his.

"Essex," he says. I notice he'd changed his clothes, and put a Band-Aid on the worst of the scrapes. "Got an urgent text, so I've got to."

"An urgent what?"

"Text," he says, "From a band mate. Is a crucial one. Says I got to get back righ' away. Seemed sort of though'-out and everyfing."

"A band mate?" I say, "You're in a band?" This keeps on getting weirder.

"Yeh, wull. Used t'be." I hear something change in his tone. "'Course, is me who dun started it off, in'it."

"Are you quite popular?"

"Oh wull, yeah. We's plen'y popular. We've got videos out and everyfing. Been on tour. Righ'. S'pose I betta get going, then."

He grabs hold of a horizontal bar I hadn't seen till now and gives it a push. The pile of boxes moves toward the door and I realize he's got them on wheels. I wonder how it's going to fit through the door.

"What're you called, then? Your band?"

He stops and looks at me again. Those eyeless eyes on me. "Gorillas."

My brows rise. "Gorillas?"

"Yeh."

"Like the big, hairy animal?"

"No, no. Is cooler'n tha'. Is like, wif a capital G. And a Z a'the end."

"Oh…_Gorillaz_, then?"

"Tha's righ', yeah." He smiles. "S'prised you 'aven't 'eard of us. Y'should give us a listen."

"Yeah, alright. S'pose I will."

"Righ' then." He goes to push his wheely cart again, but gets caught at the door like I thought he would. He stops. "Oh. Tha's a problem."

I take the sheet off my legs and swing off the bed. I never touched my water. "You want some help with that?"

"Oh yes, thank you," he says, "Don't know wha' I'm going t'do now."

"Right." I wanted to be helpful. "Well let's just do it old fashioned-like, yeah? One box at a time?"

I grab the topmost one and make for the door.

"Yeh, alright." He grabs one, too. I kick the cart out of the way, and I'm about to go out when I pause to look at Stu. And I say, "Thanks for bringing me down here. And for trying to save me last night. And the water." All sounds really stupid put together like that.

"Aw wull, yeah. Couldn't leave you jus' lyin' on the floor awl morning, could I? Wot kind of gen'leman would I be then, eh?"

What kind of gentleman, he says. That was cute. Cuter then when Earney said it, that's certain. I couldn't_believe_I'd passed out.

"Yeah. Really, though. Thank you."

I turn and go through the door. Stu follows.

We're outside now, and the day_was_definitely beautiful. Soft sun poured down off the rooftops and all the trees were green. Traffic seemed farther away. Rubbish bins overflowed. Thank you, Buddha, my hangover's gone. Would've thought blacking-out'd make it worse, but it actually seemed to do the trick. No lemon was required.

"So. Where's your car?" I say.

"… Where's my wot?"

* * *

Sun's sunk a bit. I've got myself situated and ready. Helmet and everything.

"Alright. Everything in?"

Stu's finishing strapping it all down. I take another look at the box heaps and wonder if this really will work. Or if what I'm doing is at all cleaver.

"Yeh, s'all in," he says, "Are you sure this is awright? Is quite a trip."

I think about it. Was it alright? Was it even_sane_? I mean – again – he hadn't any idea who I was. I was just the bird living in the flat above his. Well, _used _to be his. Now it was just an empty room near the road with a big window.

"Yeah, it's alright. Really," I say.

S'pose I wasn't thinking clearly, with all that's happened. It's like a chain of dominoes – one loony thing after another. All having to do with Stu. Jesus. I really can't believe it! Living right underneath me for however long, and I hadn't a clue! It was only a matter of time before we'd run into each other. And now, with my ukulele case strapped to my back and my jacket on, it felt as though the domino track was falling in a loop; same as last night. 'Course now, I've got fresh trousers and T-shirt on and a bag of a spare outfit strapped to Stu's wheely cart, which attached onto the back of my motorbike by a link chain I'd had (I don't know why I had it, actually).

"Ready when you are, Stu," I say. I watch as he gives the strap another tug and comes round to meet me. He's got on black trousers and a fedora hat. Same boots as before.

"I'm ready," he says and pops on the back of my seat, "Fanks a lot."

"Don't sweat it, man. I owe you." I did. I felt terrible about last night, still. Those poor eyes.

I feel him position himself on the seat, and then his stick arms as they wrap round my stomach. Then I go all hot again._Ack_. First time I've had any second thoughts about all this, which is quite weird when I think about it. Sitting here now, in the low sun, bike gleaming and Stuart's pothole eyes on me, I can't say I ever had a second thought till about any of what's happened. I'd been needing a change. S'not like I had a job or anything.

Stu asks me something, but I don't quite hear him over the roar of my engine. "Wassat?"

"Said, wos yo' name?" he asks me, louder now, "Never caught it."

Oh. That's right. Oops. "Never gave it," I say over the engine, "S'Wiona."

We pull out. The wheely cart tugs along nicely, everything staying in its place. It's another miracle it didn't all just blow off.

"Wiona. Righ'. Already know my name, eh?"

"Right. Stuart, yeah?"

Don't know why I asked. Guess it was too weird for me to know him so well, so I feigned ignorance.

"Oh, wull, yeah," he says, "It is. Bu' you can call me Two-Dee, if y'like."

What? "Two-Dee?" I ask him, "Why's that?"

"Wull, I've got two 'oles in me 'ead, don' I? Two dents. Two D."

"Oh," I say. We reach the first intersection, and I slow to a halt. "Shouldn't it be Two-_Dees_, then?"

Two-Dee thinks about it.

"Er," he says after a moment, "S'pose it should, shouldn't it?"

I laugh. Realize my throat's sore. "Bit late now, I s'pose, eh?"

"Yeh. Guess it is."

He quiets down after that. I begin to feel sort of bad for saying anything about it.

"How do you spell it?" I ask. The light's yet to turn from red. There aren't any oncoming cars, but I wanted to hear him better, so I didn't run it. Couldn't afford the ticket, anyway.

"Two," he says, "Like the numba 2. Then 'D'. The letta," he says.

The light turns green, and we're off again.

"That's a right cool name," I say. It was true; I really did like it. Even if it did was because of his spooky mutilations.

I feel him perk up. He was easy to please, 2D. "Fank you!" I imagine him smiling, and I smile too.

Didn't know it at the time, but I wouldn't be doing much more of that. In hindsight, I probably should have just stayed at my flat.

* * *

{_Sheesh, awful short chapter, comparatively. 4's coming soon~ You'll see the rest of them soon, I promise!_}


	4. Love's Young Deities

{Wagwan, bluds?? This is Chapter 5! I'm not sure what's best to listen to while reading this, but try "Into the Ocean" by Blue October. Thank you so much!~}

* * *

..

"_Ooh, 'ee's a big one, in't 'ee!" _

_Dad takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. "'Ee could eat you up in a signle bite, 'ee could!" _

_He grabs me by the waist and hauls me up on his shoulder. His balding head smells like patchouli and dust. Blue light dapples over us, making beautiful swirling images on our faces and arms. It's cold, but the glass is colder. An enormous void of endless water stretches out behind it. _

"'_Ere 'ee comes again!" _

_A deep shape is in the blue – coming at us. It's nothing but a giant black blob in the water. As it nears, I begin to scream. _

"_Ooh, 'ere 'ee is, 'ere 'ee is!" _

_A beast of the depths. Its long body comes into focus, and I can see its eyes – watching everything and nothing at once. It curves past the glass and we see it in its enormity. I feel it watching me and I scream again. Dad laughs. _

"_Finks yo' an awful tasty-looking munchkin, don't 'ee!" He swings me off his shoulders and holds me close to his chest. I wrap my limbs round his torso. Shut my eyes. I feel the monster behind me. Tasty-looking, he's thinking. _

"_Don't worry, luv. I've got you," he says, "He won't try to pick a fight with yer ol' dad. I'll give 'im a punch righ' in the conk!" He kisses the top of my head. _

"_Don't worry, luv. I've got you here. You're safe with me." _

"You'll want to take tha' turn there."

I jump, and nearly swerve into the opposite lane.

"Right! Sorry!" I give the bike a turn and we merge into an exit. The wheely-cart turns with me, though difficultly.

The sun's nearly completely set now. The coal-coloured sky stretches out above us in every direction, rimmed with golden sun. The day was nearly dead. I'm beginning to fall asleep already. Can't be doing that.

"How're you doing, 2D?" I say over the growling engine and traffic noise. He doesn't hear me. I turn a little and see that he's watching the fields to the right. It wasn't really anything to see – it was completely barren. But he seemed to be enjoying it. I didn't repeat my question.

Turns out he'd been right; it _was_ quite a trip from Eastbourne to Essex. I begin wondering if we should stop somewhere for the night. Originally, my plan was to take Stu (or the-boy-formerly-known-as-Stu) to wherever he needed to be and then find somewhere to crash – I'd take off again the following morning. Seems I'll have to interject that with a pit stop. I hadn't packed enough spare clothes for this.

It was all beginning to seem quite crazy, indeed, what I was doing. It was crazy from the beginning, but I could feel it really starting to settle in. Every once in a while, my mind will wander in a sort of meditative way, as one's mind does when driving long stretches of road. It'll occur to me that I've got the arms of a boy I hadn't seen for years and never thought I'd ever see again round my hips. All this was beginning to sound like a shitty romance novel. Or something.

I kept thinking about his eyes.

The sun dips down below the hills at last – dies, unceremoniously. The sky becomes completely dark, blue like a bruise, and in the center the pricks of early stars begin to peak through. The narrow road begins to widen. We pass beneath streetlamps. My lights are on, but I figure it's about time to begin looking for a stop. Can't trust myself to stay awake much longer with the sort of day I'd had - blackouts and hangovers and stupid snap decisions. It was exhausting.

I spot lights in the distance. "We're turning here!" I try shouting to Stu as I pull off onto another exit. He doesn't answer (or maybe he does, but I don't catch it).

We keep on riding, and I realize we're on our way to a sort of shady-looking motel. It's all squat buildings and blinking VACANCY signs. Noting the NO's aren't illuminated, I keep on riding toward it. We pull in and are doused in a pool of yellow light by a set of streetlamps all stuck in a clump near each other. The fields of nothing pour out from behind the little complex of brown-painted wood buildings. Their fronts are pocked with all sorts of different-shaped windows, which is odd for a motel. I notice the sign, LED-lighted, is of a giant palm tree. The glowing green leaves hang over the words MO-EL, which are lit in pink. No name – just, _MO-EL. _Would be MOTEL, but the T's out.

I begin to slow down. S'good as any, I guess. I turn round to Stu, and say, "We'll pick up again in the morning, yeah?"

He looks at me. I'm caught off guard by those holes again. "Yeh, s'fine wif me," he says. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever get used to those.

We park the motorbike. His hands come off my stomach and I feel like a hot stone's just removed itself from my skin. I take a breath.

Beneath the flickering light of the cheap bulbs, we look at the piles of boxes on the cart. Looks like it's all there, which is amazing. "How're we going to keep it all from getting jacked?"

"S'awright if we jus' leave it 'ere," says Stu. Says 2D. "I mean, none of it's weely _tha'_ value'ble o'anyfing. Jus' as long as we take those boxes, there." He points at the top of the heap.

"Why those?"

"S'me ins'rments. And me films. Can't be wifout those. Can't bear anyone snatchin' 'em up."

"Oh, yeah," I say. We go to un-strap them from the rest of the heap and I pause for a moment. "What sorts of films?"

"'Orrah, mos'ly," he answers, "Got lots of zombie films, too. Awl the classics."

"Horror films?" I say, "They don't frighten you?"

He grabs a box and pauses for a moment, thinking. "No' weely, no. S'weely quite coo' ac'ually, 'ow you know yo' safe n'everyfing, 'cos yo' jus' sittin' there watchin' it, but awl the sudden, you feel like _yo'_ in terribul dangah – jus' from watchin' it!" He pauses again. "S'pose they do frighten me a bit, then, yeh."

I laugh a little. "You're quite interesting, 2D. D'you know that?"

He smiles another gapped, eyeless smile. It's so odd – the two dents actually makes him seem quite serene, like there isn't any thought in there as than would be if there were eyes.

"Fank you!" he says.

* * *

Our rooms aren't terribly glamorous. I wasn't expecting them to be, but nonetheless. They weren't. They were extremely small, for one. The beds were pull-down, and once you did pull it down, there was barely room enough for anything else. The walls were quite drab and stained, which was off-putting. Our carpets were orange shag. We each had a tiny old telly, which was nice, and a fish tank on dresser that contained no water or fish but lots of fish accoutrement. It was all quite dusty.

"Right," I say to myself. Stu's already gotten in his room, which was two from mine; we were both on the third floor, right above where I'd parked my bike. The man who'd given us our keys was short and Asian, with greasy black hair styled a bit like Ricky Ricardo's. Said his name was Tattoo.

I put my single case of luggage on the bed that smelled faintly of urine and quite a bit like a new car. I go to pop the case open to remove my jammies when I hear a knock at the door.

"'Oo is it?" I say, "Tattoo?"

"No. S'me."

I open the door.

"Hello."

"Hi," he says. Smiling at me, "Weely sorry, b'you don' 'appen to 'ave any toofpaste wif you?"

"Toothpaste," I repeat, "Um… No, I don't." Forgotten to bring it. Stupid. I'll positively reek in the morning. So will he, I 'spose. "They've got some in the bathrooms, I think. Wouldn't trust it if I were you, though. Looked pretty dodgy."

"Yeh, wou'n't ee-fah." He chuckles awkwardly. I'm beginning to feel quite awkward, myself, but I'm not really sure why. I look back at the room for a moment as though a tube of toothpaste would suddenly appear for me there, but it didn't.

"Um." I turn back around as 2D clears his throat. His big blue brows pull together in the middle.

"Yes?" I say, which seems to surprise him a little. I wonder if it'd sounded mean.

"Oh – er. I wos wond'rin', act'ally, also, if you wou'n't mind giving me 'hand wif the bed. It won't pull down. Fink is stuck."

"Oh," I say. That's all it was? Thought it'd be more than that. "Yeh sure. I'll come round now, actually."

He smiles again. "Awright!" He starts off toward his room. I shut my door, lock it and follow him.

As I'd said earlier, his room's like mine. Only his has boxes in it, and there was a keyboard on his writing desk. "'Ere it is," he says, looking at the wall. His head nearly hits the ceiling. I come next to him and he gives the pull a tug. Nothing comes loose.

"Here, let me," I say. I hook a finger in the white plastic ring and really throw my weight into it. I grunt, but still, it stays.

"'Ere," says 2D. I let go and he grabs onto it. "I'll pull it, you pull me."

"Er. Alright." S'a bit awkward for me, but I bet it'd work. He puts his free hand on top of the one grabbing the pull as I put my arms around his thin stomach – so thin, in fact, I'm surprised by how much of my arms fit round it.

He pulls first, then me – and the second I do, the bed comes shooting out from off the wall. "Ack!" I let go of him and dodge off to the side, though there wasn't much space dodge to. I hear a great _'THUD_' behind me, followed by a sort of mushroom-cloud effect of new car bit of piss-stink. Then a muffled "Mrff".

I turn round. We've got the bed down, surely. But all I see of 2D's lanky body are his arms sticking out from beneath it.

"Oh, crap!" I go to the side and lift it off him. His face looks a bit smushed. "Are you quite hurt?"

"Err… S'awright…" he says back, liltingly, "Least it's down now…"

"Well, yeah, at the expense of your face, it is." I grab his shirt shoulder and pull him out a ways. He props himself up by his elbows and stands back up again. I let the bed fall.

He puts a palm to his eyeless eye, like he'd done in my kitchen what seemed like years before. "Fank you," he says.

"Well, yeah," I give the bed frame a pat. "Was quite a difficult job."

I exhale, then look about the room. We both sort of just stand there for a moment. I don't really know what to do now. Then 2D clears his throat again and says, "You 'ungery a'awl?"

Hungry... Lord, I _am_ hungry! I haven't eaten anything since the night before! It hadn't occurred to me till now that I'm positively ravenous. "Yes, I am, actually... But where we gonna get food?"

"'Ere," he says. He goes to one of the boxes. I watch as he tears the Duct tape off the top and opens it. He tosses me a bag something. "'Elp yo'self."

I look down at it. Crisps. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see a bag of Crisps in all my life. "Thank you!" I say.

"Sure fing." He pulls out another bag of something for himself. I open mine, and eat.

I s'pose I should just go back to my room, but for some reason, instead I go off toward his boxes.

"These the films?"

"Oh. Yeh," he says, through a mouth-full of crunchy things. Mostly, the ones he'd brought in were still Duct-tapped up, but other than the food box, the only one that'd been opened was filled with loads of DVDs, all a bit haphazardly stacked-in. "Top ones are best."

I shuffle through them. All the covers looked quite old-fashioned and a bit corny. Most had a screaming woman on them somewhere. "Which is your favourite?"

"Oh, tha's quite difficult…" The bedsprings squeak harshly as he sits on the bed that nearly killed him. "I s'pose the _weely_ classic ones are quite good. Only a few real recent ones are at awl decent. '_Dawn of the Dead'_ one of the real greats. Tha's the one on the very top, there."

I look for a moment before spotting it. _Dawn of the Dead_ original feature, the re-mastered Director's Cut. "S'quite good, then?"

"Oh, yeh," he says, "Woul'n't be called a _great,_ if it weren't."

I study the cover for a moment, fingering it. Then I take a breath, and I ask him: "Would you like to watch it?"

His brows perk up again. He smiles at me, and I'm relieved. "Yeh, awright! 'Aven't seen it fo' ages."

I smile back. I didn't really know what I was doing. Then again, I hadn't really since I'd met Stu. 2D. I pop the CD out of the case and take it to the tiny, dusty telly. For some reason, there's a player all hooked up and everything, though there are quite a few needless-looking wires exposed where the two hook into one another.

After a bit of finangling, I've got the CD in. A sticky remote's on the floor near the stand. I grab it and turn everything on.

"'Ave _you_ ever seen it?" he asks me, moving to the end of the bed, closer to the telly.

I shake my head. "No, I haven't. Don't know if I'm good with horror films or anything. S'pose I'll watch this n'see, yeah?"

I go to sit down and realize it was quite a bit awkward, watching telly in this miniscule room. There weren't sofas or anything – just the bed. I sort of look down at the edge of it, the part 2D wasn't seated on. He notices me watch and scoots over. "'Ere y'go."

"Oh." Alright, then. Thanks." I'm a little surprised he didn't find it weird, too. Guess I shouldn't have been - he didn't seem to mind quite a lot of things.

I take a seat. The previews begin. I skip to the menu.

"D… d'you mind if I scoot back a bit?" The screen was so close it made my eyes blur. I start to push myself up toward where the grimy-looking pillows are.

He looks back at me. "Oh yeh, go 'head." I watch him bring his legs up and cross them as the credits come on.

I didn't mean to, really. But by the time the title appeared I was totally zonked. Stupid me.

* * *

{_Oh, gosh. Thank you for reading~! Chapter 6 will come soon, and we might see a bit of the others in that!! Finally! : D }_


	5. Down the Hole

..

Wiona.

"…"

Don't play stupid with me.

"…"

Open your eyes.

"…"

Time's nearly up, Wiona. S'nearly up.

Open your eyes, you rotten girl.

_Open your fucking eyes and look at me!!_

I open them. I shoot up so quickly I knock the breath out of myself.

I look around the room. No one's there.

Well, no, that isn't really true - Stu's there. He's at my feet. He's asleep. He hadn't said anything.

Had I really drempt that? It sounded so real, and so close… Was I finally going off my rocker?

Either way. Scared the shit out of me.

It was another beautiful day outside. Buttery light poured in through the window. It really helped me shake off the creeps. Awful chill that'd given me.

I look back down at Stu. He's completely covered in the sunlight, like he's marinating in it. His forget-me-not hair is tossed about his head. He's lying on his side, with his long legs bent over the end of the bed. His large hands are curled slightly. His lips open a little. The depthless holes are hidden beneath his pale lids, which I suddenly notice have quite a bit of lashes on them.

God strike me if he didn't look completely wonderful, down there by my feet.

The remote control was at his side. The television's off. S'pose I'll have to see my first zombie film another time.

Quietly, as not to startle Stu, I peel myself out of the bed. I'd found my way beneath the covers somehow. I sure did like to make myself at home wherever he was.

I sneak round to the toilet, with the belt of my jeans feelings as though it's trying to dig through my hipbones after rolling round in them all night. I get in, turn the light on and shut the door behind me without any sound at all.

First time I've seen myself in a mirror in two nights and a day.

My hair's a total wreck. It's the sort that's got to be styled up – all short in the back, long in front. Purplish bits of it stick to my sweaty face, which is in need of a good wash. Lipstick's completely gone. My spaghetti-straps are all askew. The chronically dark bags beneath my eyes are even darker and baggier. My fringe is all over the bloody place. I'd really like a cigarette.

But I realize I'm actually quite happy, out here like this.

I suppose I'd been needing a holiday. My 9-to-5 gave me the axe last week, and the landlord of Wofty Towers had been getting a bit warning notice-happy. Earney'd been my only source of income. I wager he'd just twist my lid off if I ever see him again. I'll be making sure to stay quite clear of the Black Hole when I get back.

S'pose I'll be a bit of a homeless person, once the landlord notices my payments aren't coming in at all. Don't know where I'll even start looking for another job. It's safe to say I am most definitely not looking forward to returning to Eastbourne.

Time to clean up a bit. I run the tap on cold and splash my face in it. It gives me the shivers, but it's nice. I grab for a dodgy-looking towel on the rack near the mirror but think twice about it and use my shirt instead. I put a bit of the water in my mouth, gargle it, spit it out and gag. Tastes like something's been swimming round in the tanks.

Stu's where I left him, 'cept he's switched sides. I put my hand on his shoulder and shake him a bit. Don't even bother looking at the clock; I wanted to get out of this place as soon as I could.

"Oi, Stu," I say softly, "Let's get going, eh? C'mon."

I hear him hum a little, but otherwise, there's no response.

My hand lingers where it is; little too long, maybe. I sort of like how warm he was, gross as that sounds. His shirt felt good, too.

I sort of want to touch his hair, because it looks so _unreal._ But I don't. I pull my hand back, displeased with myself.

Didn't like getting like this. Not a bit.

I go back to my room.

* * *

"Stu?" I knock my knuckles on his door, "You up?"

I've got my one bag and my ukulele, all ready and I'm at his door again. Haven't showered or anything. I feel a bit more sweaty beneath my fresh clothes than I would if I'd taken a shower, but taking a shower here would probably've made it worse.

I hear a bit of banging round and a _'clank_'. "Yeh, hallo!" he says, "Jus' be a minute. Sorry."

I lean my back against the brick near the door till he comes out. He's got on all new clothes and his hands are full of boxes. "Wagwan!" he says.

"Morning. D'need help with those?" I ask, pointing at the boxes.

"Naw, s'awight," he says, "I emptied out mos' of the food, so is much ligh'a. Took sum biscuits, though. Would you like them?"

I smile. "Yeh, sure."

"Righ'. They're on the bed," he says. I watch him maneuver round me and heads toward the stairway. I keep watching him go a moment before turning back into his room. He sure _did_ leave the food – there were great heaps of it on the writing desk.

On the end of the bed, where he'd been lying, was a packet of biscuits.

After returning my keys to the front desk (Tattoo was absent, so I just left them), I meet Stu at my bike. Sun leaks over the roofs of the disgusting little complex. The LED palmtree'd been shut off for the morning.

"Ready t'go?" I ask. Then I stop.

But for those he had in his hands still, there were no boxes. In fact, there wasn't even a wheely-cart left. All that remained were a few stray straps that had been round the boxes, lying on the road – otherwise, nothing. "Holy _shit!_" I shout at him, "They took it _all_?"

"… Yeh," says 2D. We watch the space behind my bike for a moment in silence. "Can't believe it."

"But there weren't any cars here last night!" It'd just been us. And Tattoo. "Who could've taken _all_ this in a night! There was loads of stuff!"

2D shifts his feet. "Wull," he thinks for a moment, "S'pose is like I said las' night. It wasn't weely tha' important or anyfing. Jus' clothes n' stuff. I can get more'a those in Essex. S'not that big a deal, weely."

I gape at him. _Not a big deal!_ All he had left was a box of DVDs and another box of keyboards! I look up at him. "It really doesn't bother you at all?"

He looks at me and shakes his head. "S'long as I've got this –" he pats the boxes in his hands, "I'm awright."

I watch his eyeless face. He was either the most Zen guy I'd ever met in my life, or a complete idiot. Or both.

"C'mon," he says, "Les get on."

"But how're you going to carry your things? You can't hold all that all the way to Essex."

He stops again. "…Oh, wull. I s'pose not."

We look at my bike for a moment. 2D shuffles his big feet in the dust again.

My eyes stray to the straps on the ground. "S'pose we use those?"

* * *

There were far less cars on the highway than there'd been last night. In fact, it'd only been us for miles. The sun was directly above us. It wasn't particularly hot, but it was quite a bit bright. Clouds drew low round the horizon, as if giving the sun as much space as possible to reign the sky. We were surrounded by hills.

"So you're just the keyboardist, then?" I ask Stu. It'd been something I'd been wondering for a while.

He looks up at me. It was quite a bit easier to hear each other with no cars around. Against his back, all sorts of keyboards and keyboardy-looking things were strapped by a mess of the cords, stray wires flailing in the wind behind him. He's not the only one who can make the best of a situation. Looked a bit pack-mule-ish, though. His DVD box is in his hands. "Oh, no," he says, "I mean, yeh, I play tha'. But I'm the singah, too."

"The _singer_?" Hadn't expected that. Singers always struck me as different than any other member. Like a frontman. I was beginning to learn not to expect anything about him. "Are there quite a few people in your band, other than yourself?"

He thinks. "Not weely, no. S'jus' us four."

"Four," I say, "Do you all get along?"

2D snorts. He seems put off, suddenly. Could he actually be upset about something? "S'that a no, then?"

"Wull, we would," he says, "'Cept fo' one wanka. 'Ee's the reason I'm going back there. Can't imagine letting 'im go off on the others. I've go' t'show him wot for, now. Show 'im 'oo's boss."

That _did_ surprise me. Imagining 2D angry with anyone was extremely peculiar with him as gentle as he was. "S'he really that bad?"

"Oh, yeh! 'Ee's terribul! Drunk awl the time. _Lazy_. Stealing my gurlfriends, even. 'Ee's lucky I came 'round, o'there woul'n't be any band! 'Oo fink 'ee'd be grateful, but no!"

"Oh," I say, "He _does_ sound awful."

"Ooh, 'ee is. Stay clear of 'im, yeh. 'Ee's terribul wif women."

"Is he really?"

"Yeh. 'Ee'd be bringin' 'em round awl hours o' the nigh' and kickin' 'em out in the morning. 'Ee's a rot-ah, 'ee is."

"I'll definitely try not to meet him…" Anyone who could bother Stu must really be a piece of work.

"Yeh, please do."

We pass a few signs. Still no cars anywhere.

"What's the rest of the band like?" I ask him.

"Oh, they're great!" he smiles at me, with absolutely no trace of the ill will he'd been speaking with a moment ago, "Awl quite nice. I fink you'll like them."

"Oh."

Something's just occurred to me. He wants to introduce me to them.

"Yeh, Russ is great. 'Cept when 'ee's mad, then 'ee's terrifying. An' Noodle! Aw, she's a doll, she is. Never a cross word about no one from 'er. Sweet as can be."

"… _Noodle?_ Is that a nickname?"

"No," says 2D, sounding surprised that I'd asked, "Is her name."

"Oh." Sounded like a cat's name. But I didn't want to judge.

We keep on riding.

* * *

"There it is!"

"Wh… _That's_ it?"

"Yeh!"

I slow down the bike. "_That's_ your studio?"

The village of Essex was quite nice – sweet little houses, green hills and all that. Lovely, really. But there was something quite odd about the hill on the right of the road.

For one, it was _enormous_. For another, it looked extremely haunted.

"Yeh, tha's it!" says 2D, still looking a bit like a donkey with all his gear strapped to him, "I know is not the best-looking fing in all the land, but is actually quite awright inside."

I pull off the road. It was the darkest, spookiest hill I'd ever seen. It stood out like a great, dark pimple on the face of Essex. On the very top, there was a building, which looked, if it possible, even _more_ haunted than the hill itself. Hardly a hill, actually; it was more like a cliff. "How are we supposed to get all the way up _there_?"

2D points to the cliffside. "There's a li'l pass, over there. Takes y'righ' up."

"Oh. Yeah, alright." Gee whiz. Spooky band.

We ride on up. It was quite a vertical climb. Bumpy, too. 2D's DVD case clanked with every hill and pothole.

I'm noticing that as we near, the air seems to be getting… greener, for some reason. As if air pollution was worse up here than it was down there. There also seem to be odd stones jutting out from the black ground. Bits of scraggly trees hung over them, bare as bone. We pass close to one of them. "2D… Was that a _gravestone?_"

"Oh," he says, "Yeh, it is. There're loads of 'em 'ere."

What the _hell_ sort of studio has gravestones?! "Don't they concern you at all?"

2D's bottom lip sticks out slightly, as I can see in my peripheral. "Not weely, no."

Well, no, I s'pose it wouldn't. All those DVDs you've got. Bet he likes them.

We keep on upwards till we're just about to reach the top and are halted by something: a giant iron gate. I can see the word "KONG" written out in the bars. "Seriously?" I say more to myself than 2D.

Beyond it lied a quite modern-looking building, but in this environment it might as well've been the creepiest haunted house there ever was. It looked positively evil. Just as I'm about to get off and try pushing the gate open (can't get around it for high brick walls on either side) when it swings open for me.

"Is it meant to do that?" I ask.

"Does it all the time," he says.

I ride on through, toward the studio. It really is a beautiful building – cube-shaped, all giant, symmetrical windows and smooth white walls. I began wondering how popular this group was. But as I said before: the studio looks as though it's planning on eating me, the way it's looming over us, surrounded by more dead trees and what I'm assured to be more gravestones, leaning every which way like crooked teeth.

"S'lovely place, this," I sort of mumble to myself.

"Yeh, s'quite nice. 'Cept fer, y'know, awl the dead things round it."

I get as close as I can without running into the bottom. I stop my bike. "How do you get in?"

2D looks up at it. "There're doors all 'round it," he says, "But they're sort of tricky to find."

Just as I'm about to ask where one starts looking, I stop. I hear something... coming from the top of the studio.

"D'you hear that?"

"'Ere wot?" says 2D. I listen again.

There it is: '_Eee'_. I look up, but I don't see anything.

Then it gets louder.

"_Eeeeeee_!"

I look up and see something: a small black-haired person is coming down at us from the top of the building. Falling toward us!

"Deeeeeeeeeeeee!"

"Hhumprh - !" I watch as the person lands exactly where 2D's face is, grabs on to him, and takes him to the ground. The DVD box and all the cases in it come out of his hands and clatter to the ground. The keyboards go scattering, too.

"Deesan!!" says the little flying person, "I've missed you!" It's sitting on 2D's stomach, hugging him tightly. 2D looks a bit dazed, but otherwise alright for having someone thrown at him at such velocity.

"Hallo, Noodle," he says quietly.

_That's the Noodle?_ I think. She can't more than fifteen!

"I am so happy you received my text message!" she says, quite thick-accented, "It's been so long! But you've returned. Now, I'm so happy!"

She hugs 2D tighter and he smiles so sweetly. "I'm 'appy to see you too!"

He picks himself and the little Noodle-girl up off the ground and returns her hug. My heart's racing for the shock of her falling from the sky, but I'm also quite touched by this. It almost made me sad, how sweet it looked. Like a sister and brother who'd lost each other.

I notice that she most certainly _is_ female and quite obviously Asian, but I can't tell what sort she is. Her hair is the color of wet stone and straight as anything, or at least the bit I can see is from beneath her hat, which has ears and is meant to look like the face of a dog. She's wearing a pair of shorts. Her legs are quite thin, long and very, very pale.

I suddenly begin to think her being called _Noodle_ might be a bit racist… But I don't say this aloud.

"Oi!"

All three of us look up. "Wot the _hell_ are you doing, Noodle!" says an open window on the side of the building, "Jumping out of windows all willy-nilly! _You nearly gave me a bleedin' heart-attack_, you…" The voice trails off, but I hear a bit of what sounded awfully like the words '_c__ommie'_ and '_j__ap'_.

"Murdocsan! We have regained another lost member of our family!" Noodle shouts back at the window. "2Dsan has returned to us, and we welcome him back warmly!" Then she looks at me. "And he's brought a friend!"

"Don't tell me you nearly committed bloody suicide just to greet that sodding numb-nuts!" says the window, "I'll come down there and slice his aching face off if it is!"

Noodle ignores what the window's said and looks at 2D. "Murdocsan has missed you very much! He is so happy you've come home, 2Dsan!"

"Sure 'ee is," says 2D.

I hear the angry window click shut. Noodle, still seated on top of 2D, looks up at me.

"Hello! It's very good of you to bring us our valued friend back! I am extremely grateful!"

I really like this little person. "No trouble," I say.

I watch as she picks herself up off of 2D, turns to me, and bows deeply. "My name is Noodle. It's a great pleasure to meet you."

I bow, too, not really knowing what else do to. "Hello, Noodle. 2D's told me about you. I'm Wiona."

She comes out of the bow and looks up at me. "Has he said good things?"

I laugh a little laugh. "Yes, he has."

She turns back at 2D, who's still on the ground. "Your lady-friend Wionasan is very nice! I like her!"

2D nods, bringing one of the keyboards no longer strapped to his back onto his lap. "Yeh, she's well nice. She brought me all the way 'ere! Frum Eastbourne!"

Little Noodle turns back to me and puts her hands on her thighs. She bows again, even deeper. "Endless thanks for what you've done!"

I definitely like her.

She takes my hand and pulls me with more force than I thought she could exert, her being the size she is. "Come with me now, please!" I let her take me toward the building. I look back at 2D, who's just now picking himself up. He smiles at me. "S'pose I'll see you inside, then?"

Noodle pulls me round the corner before I can reply. "Come meet everyone!" she says, "It is so wonderful to extend our beautiful family!" Her white sneakers squeak in the mud.

We go up toward a thick-looking door. Noodle gives the grimy knob a twist and pulls me inside. "Everyone will surely love your presence!"

Inside was, indeed, quite nicer than the outside was. In fact, I wasn't really expecting it to look at all like it did. It barely looked haunted at all.

"Murdocsan!" Noodle calls out, letting my hand drop, "Come and greet a new friend, please!"

It's quite a mess in here. What looks a bit like a reception desk is in front of me, beyond which one of the large windows, looking out at a great view of a green cloud. There's a living space off to the side, and a lift. There were quite a few items in here that shouldn't be here at all: lava lamps, knickers, cactus trees, magic 8-balls, bowling pins, odds and ends from cars, empty Prince album cases, potted herb plants and the like.

Noodle turns to me again. I notice now, in the light, that she's quite beautiful. "Welcome to our happy home!"

Then the lift dings, and the doors slide open.

* * *

{_Ooh, long-ass chapter… But finally: the rest of the band! Haha. Please let me know what you think of the series. Your comments are extremely valuable to me! ~ st.}_


	6. Devil and the Sea

{Hello! Thank you all so much for the extremely supportive reviews! I really appreciate it!! This is chapter 7, I think, and we're FINALLY at Kong! Yes, we are! Fab! And for this, I'd recommend "Armagedeon Version" by Willie & the Soundemension, if I've spelled that all right... Thank you again for reading! I hope you enjoy!}

* * *

..

A green man is standing in the lift box. "… came all 'way down here," he's saying, "for that _foot-dragger_."

The man whose voice I recognize from the window steps out into the foyer. He isn't wearing any shirt – just a pair of thin, baggy jeans tied round his waist by a belt with a buckle shaped like a small skull (which looks quite real from here). His hair's shaped a bit like one of the Beatles' and incredibly greasy-looking. He's got extremely crooked, discolored teeth, which remind me of the gravestones – all jagged and misplaced. And his eyes… Yellow where they should be white, red where there should be blue or green. Has this band got something about ill-designed eyes?

"Noodle!" says the green man, "What in _Satan's trousers_ were you thinking? Scaring the proverbial _stuffing_ out of me. You shou – _ooh_."

Then he spots me.

He saunters over, giggling grotesquely. "Ahuhuh… Noods! Didn't know you had a _guest_ round here…"

I begin to smell whatever stank is on him, but he keeps coming. I notice he's got a bottle of something in his hand. Once he comes so close I can see the stains on his teeth, he takes a swig from it. I begin to feel very much turned-off.

"I think I've been told about you," I say to him.

He watches me out of the corner of his yellow eye. "Oh, have you, now." He comes a little closer. I take a step back. "And _wot_ is it you've heard, then? Nothing about my… ahuh – _dark past, _I hope? Righ'? Nothing about the _hhhairy_ situations I've gotten myself situated into? Or the many _hhhijinks_ that dot the timeline of my _incredible life_, eh?"

_Chrrrrist._

He grins at me. I can see very well how badly he needs a dentist… Well, from where I am, I can see he needs a list of things, including a hair wash. And a bath. And it then becomes very clear to me that I must make it known to this green-skinned man that I'm not one to take this sort of shit.

"Well. I've definitely _not_ been told you've got a knack for putting women off." I look him straight in the face. "Or that you're able get your skin _and_ teeth the _exact_ same shade of viridian. It's _amazing_!"

It's quite nice to watch that very hue drain from his face. "Why you… _CA - !" _

I jump as, suddenly, a tiny hand cuts the thin space between my face and the green man's. The little white fingers grab onto him, a thumb and forefinger on each temple, and give him a squeeze.

"Ah – _f'Chrissake… - !"_ He backs away from me, his eyes tight-shut.

"Please do not be weird to Wionasan, Murdoc," says Noodle, reaching her little hand up to follow the path of the green man's face, "I want her to be different than the others. Alright?"

"Yes, yes, for Pete's sake, _yes_!!" He tries shaking her off and nearly hits what's possibly a reception desk. "Jus' _geroff me!_"

"Hallo?"

The front door's been opened.

Noodle lets go, and the man grabs his head with a hairy hand. _"_Sodding_… commie monkey."_

I turn round. 2D stands at the entryway, holding his boxes. He looks around.

The green man comes out of his funk. He shoots him look with enough animosity to stun a horse. "Listen, you," he says, pointing a long, crooked, discoloured finger at him, "_She_ migh' be glad you're here, but I swear on all the _powers_ of _Hell_ – if, by some _miracle_, a thought comes in your head, and if it has _anything_ to do with telling me something unabashedly _ssstupid_, I will _personally_ take a _large_, _square_ stick of dynamite, _light_ it, and _shove it up your arse and round the corner while you sleep!_ Did _any_ of that get through, you tart-faced _cur_?"

The red in his eyes nearly glows as he says this. Noodle looks up at 2D's face, as do I. There's a bit of silence now. 2D's dark sockets widen, his brows come up, and I notice his Adam's apple rise and fall, quickly.

He chews his bottom lip a bit. Takes a breath. Moves his fingers. And then he says, quietly, "Yeh alright."

The man called _Murdoc_ squints at him, and then starts picking himself up, mumbling. "_Goddamn… ninja shit…_"

2D just stays where he is. He doesn't seem at all fazed by what the horrible Murdoc-man had said. Not even a bit. Then he looks up. "Looks great in 'ere!" he says.

"Of _course_ it looks great," growls Murdoc, massaging his ugly mug with his free hand, "_I've _been hanging round here, haven't I?"

It'd all made me quite sad, what just happened. Noodle looked a bit put-off, too. Her round face was pointed down.

Then she perks up, suddenly, and comes toward 2D. She takes his large hand in hers. "Come see my room, Deesan!" she says sweetly, "It's quite new!"

I'm watching Murdoc give her a mean look when she says, "Come as well, Wionasan! You see, too!"

I snap out of it. "Oh, alright!"

I begin to follow her, but just as she hits the lift button, Murdoc cackles behind me.

"This ain't over, _sssweetpea_," he sneers at me. I nearly gag. "You migh' think you're _so fantastic_ with your _snarky remarks_ and your _short hair_, but no woman's ever been able to resist my _sssultry façade. _You just _wait._"

The lift dings open. 2D and Noodle stop to watch me. I take a breath. "I s'pose you don't have too many women 'round these parts, then. I'd keep your trousers on if I were you, _mmmate_."

The lift doors begin to close, but I've got a second to praise the red that's snuck beneath the green in the man's twisted-up knot of a face before they shut completely.

* * *

Noodle's room was on the lower floor at the end of a long corridor (the walls of which speckled with bits of red and other dark stains… I'd rather not think much about all that).

"Ooh! This s'fantastic!" says 2D, once we're in. Noodle nods her little head, looking smug.

Her room _was_, indeed, fantastic. It was all decked-out, like a traditional-sort Japanese house. It's got screen-doors and long, dark wood planks along the floor. There's a large, low bed at one end. Red paper lanterns were hung up about the rafters. But for all the chic bits, it was clear the room belonged to a nearly average teenage girl: magazines along the floor, socks and shirts in the corners, CDs absolutely everywhere, a punching bag (teenagers like punching bags, yeah?) and a couple very lovely-looking guitars. There was good music playing quietly, from somewhere. A fantastic room, indeed.

"Did you decorate yourself?" I ask.

Noodle shakes her head and her hat's ears flap about. "Murdocsan helped me with the heavy things! I did everything else, yes, and it was great fun to…" she thinks a moment, takes a breath, and continues, "to transform from the room of a small child, to the room of a more mature version of myself! It was like, er… very satisfying, almost meditative!"

"Ah! I see…!" Sounded a bit like a tiny Martha Stewart. Or Confucius.

"S'that a new axe?" says 2D.

The tiny guru grins and bounces over to her impressive guitar collection. She gently pets the side of a beautiful acoustic number, which looked twice as big as it should for someone her size. "Murdoc bought it for me," she says.

"Sounds like _Murdoc_ does quite a lot of thngs," I say to myself, quietly. For such a prick, he sounded awful nice. "So you're the Muh… guitarist then, Noodle?" Oh my god. I'd forgotten their name! They weren't the _Monkeys_, idiot. Who were they!?

"_Hai_," says Noodle, "It is a great honor, as well. I've been working on other things recently, however, most of which not particularly pertaining to playing the single instrument. Instead, it's more like… mm… the constructing of a lot of different sounds, yes. Do you play as well, Wionasan?"

"What? Oh." She'd caught me off guard with all that. I finger the strap of the case on my back. I suddenly feel sort of… intimidated. Perhaps it's all her guitars. "I… I do a bit, yeah."

"Weely?" says Stu. Oh, gosh… It was nice to have someone here who might be slower than I felt… "Didn't realize."

"Well… I mean, I don't play much," I babble on, "I mean, I… I don't really know much about anything, or anything."

Noodle looks up at me through a bush of fringe, her hand on the top of her guitar's neck. "Music is not _knowledge_. It is _feeling_."

Confucius say.

"Th… thank you… But really, I… I don't know how to read. Or anything."

"Oh, tha's awright," says 2D. He'd put his boxes down near me and was leaning against a low table against the windowed wall. "I've still got a few problems readin' and everyfing."

I wonder quickly, sadly, what _sort_ of reading he'd meant. "Oh, ah… yeah," I say.

I guess it was being in a room of people quite obviously more talented than I am. I really never had any sort of formal training. All the songs I've played are one's I'd made up; no written music, no lettered chords. Just the movements.

I notice now, weirdly, that it smelled quite good in this room – a sweet, blossomy-smell.

"Tha's an awful tiny guitar," says 2D.

"Oh… well, no. S'not a guitar." Swiftly, subtly, I put my suitcase down, swing the smaller case around and start unzipping. I unveil him in all his wooden glory, letting the case fall at my feet. I give him a strum. "Ukulele," I say, seeing as 2D's face's still a bit off.

And then I play.

It was a sweet song, with all the classic ukulele-ish sounds in it. It's one of the very few I've made-up. It had lyrics, but I didn't want to seem like I was overdoing it by singing them. In fact, I feel like sort of a knob for just playing it. I'd only ever played it in three places till now: at home; in Earney's half-dark, pissing-stinking Black Hole; and, for a short while, on a street-corner. I feel a bit like a child doing this – a little girl playing little songs she'd thought-up to her sister's bigger, more musically-gifted mates.

Stu'd said they'd been on tour and everything. Still can't remember their name (which is terribly embarrassing), but they've got this giant, modern house and everything. I'm obviously the least-knowing and least-successful one here.

But I don't stop. Not 'till I finish. Then I strum the last chord, choke the neck with my left hand and wait.

2D's watching me the same as he had when I'd started, but I notice Noodle's thin mouth was slightly parted. I couldn't see anything that went on under her long fringe. Then she smiles at me and says, "_Terrific_, Wionasan! You are very talented!"

Oh, my heart just about peeled apart when she said that. "Th… Thank you!" I smile, fully relieved she hadn't just scoffed at me. I'd thought she would, silly as it sounds now.

Then Stu says something.

"Tha' was lovely."

His expression hadn't changed or anything, but he'd definitely said it. Said it sort of quietly, too. As though it were, like... I don't know. Intimate, I suppose.

I smile at him. "Thank you," I say again. Quietly.

Then a noise like a sheep goes off somewhere.

Noodle looks toward her bed. "Oh!" She goes over and picks up a small, sheep-shaped clock off her bedside table. She hits a button on top and the sheep sound stops. "Dinner time!"

"What?" _Shit_, was it really? The light out the window had surely gotten darker and browner since we'd arrived. The only things I'd had today were those biscuits. Hadn't even had a cig since morning.

Noodle pops back to me. She grabs my hand again. "Come help me prepare, Wionasan!" she says.

"Oh…" I want to, really, but, "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm in serious need of a shower. And a nap."

"Oh, yes." She lets go of my hand. "Quite all right. Please allow Deesan to show you to the toilets. I will see you soon!" And out she goes.

What a fantastic girl.

"How old is she?" I wonder aloud, a bit dazed from the sheer whirlwind of being in this house.

"Fifteen, I s'pose," says 2D, "Though we're not completely sure, eh."

I'm about to ask why there'd be any doubt when a sucking sensation overtakes me. I've hit my proverbial wall. I'm absolutely _exhausted,_ all of the sudden. I rub my face with my free hand.

"Shall I show you to the toilet?" asks 2D. I look up at him and nod. "Yes, please. Sorry."

He gets up off the table edge. "Is no problem." He picks up his boxes. I pick up my things, put my instrument in his case.

He's sort of quite on the way out, and on the way up.

* * *

Held off on the shower – better not to tempt fate, with _Mur_… _whatever_ probably still quite cross with me. Hadn't even changed out of my travel clothes; I'd been shown to the lowest level, near the garage (which was _enormous_, but that's not surprising, seeing the rest of the house) to an empty room with a bed by 2D.

I'd thanked him, watched him leave, and promptly collapsed into that bed as though I were full of brick.

But I hadn't gotten the sleep I'd wanted. I was being kept up.

Wiona.

_Oh, shut up!_

You haven't accepted.

_Accepted what?_

You're avoiding it, Wiona.

_I'm not!_

You are.

_What am I avoiding?_

You know what, exactly. Stop this nonsense. Time's nearly up.

_I don't know anything! Who are you?_

You're lying.

_I'm not!_

Open your eyes and look at me.

_No! _

OPEN THEM _NOW!_

"_Get away from me!!"_

I swat my arms and thrash my legs. My eyes are shut tight. I'm out of breath and covered with cooled sweat. My heart feels like it's going to beat itself out my chest. I keep on kicking and swatting and whimpering –

And then I open my eyes.

There's no one there.

"_Shit."_ I put my face in my hands. My heart's absolutely pounding. I'm shaking completely everywhere. There isn't a bit of me that's not absolutely drenched.

I hate being frightened. I _hate_ it. It makes me feel so terribly weak and terribly _stupid_.

Dad'd never wanted me to be frightened. He'd said anything I was frightened of only has power if I'm afraid of it. My fear gives it strength – if I'm not afraid, it can't hurt me.

But this thing, whatever it was, sounded _so incredibly angry_. At me! And how could I do away with my fear if what I'm afraid of terrorizes me in _sleep_? One hasn't any control over their sleeping self, do they?

This wasn't like any dream I'd ever had before. I don't know what it is; too real to be a dream. It was too close, and too angry. It was like something standing at the bedside, _shouting_ at me. What could I possibly be nearly out of time for? I hadn't done anything!

Real danger or not, waking with my blood pressure skyrocketing after every sleep couldn't be doing me any good. So far, we'd ended both our little tiffs with it scaring the beejeezus out of me. My pulse still hadn't quite settled down, and my limbs still shook something terrible.

This specter of mine is going to be the death of me.

I look about the room. There wasn't anything in it, other than the bed and a beside table with a bowl of something on top of it. Noodle must have brought it down… Sweet of her. I must have really been out not to hear her come in.

The room also had a window. And speaking of which… the light coming out of it seemed quite a bit cleaner and brighter than it had before I'd fallen into my sleepless haze. Foggy sunlight dripped over my bed and across the floor. It was quite beautiful, actually, but disconcerting. What time was it? How long had I been out…?

I peel myself out of the sheets sticking to my sweaty self. I slip my boots back on, grab my suitcase from where I'd put it last night, grab my ukulele case, strap it on, twist myself round to stretch my back, rub a hand across my warm face, get up and open the door –

"Ooh… _Hello_," says a terribly ugly, green mug in the door-frame.

I slam it shut again. "OW!" goes the green man, "What the _hell's_ the matter with you, you ungrateful _cow_!"

"What's the matter with _me!?"_ I shout through the wood. The nerve! "You've been an absolute _tosser_ since I got here! Now go 'way!"

"Look, I don't care _wot_ you think of me, _toots_. I jus' wanna know what all the _ruckus_ was about, if it's _alright_ with you!"

"… I don't think it's any of your business, actually! How long have you been waiting outside my door!?"

"Keep your knickers on! I wasn't _waiting_; I was _sleeping_," says the man, "For your _information_, my dominion is but a few short meters from where you've been _crashing, _and I don't very much like waking up to the sound of your banging 'round at six in the morning. _Ta_."

_Six in the morning? _Was he serious? Oh, _Christ_, what must they think of me! Well, I didn't much care about what the green man outside my door thought of me, but what Noodle and Stu must think…

"If there's any chance of you opening the door sometime in the near future, you've seem to have caught my right toe beneath it, and it'd be really nice to have it back." Oh, honestly.

I open it. The green-man's face is in quite a state, indeed. The bags beneath his eyes looked extremely purple, his yellow eyes were lined with bright veins. I'm finding it a rather nice feeling to see him like this. Does that make me a sadist?

"_Thanks_," he growls at me.

I snarl back at him. What a grump. "I'm steadily discovering that I really dislike you."

"Well, _gee_, I hadn't the _foggiest_." He looks me up and down. "I'd say the feeling's mutual, but…" His eyes linger at spots, and it was no mystery as to _why_. He cackles darkly again, "_Erm… _Well, they've always said I'm a dreadful _lia – _AAAAH."

A bit of deja-vu here. I suppose it wasn't a terribly grateful thing of me to do, but I'd reached my limit. Hopefully, having the top of my boot jammed into the second crotch in three days will make the proper impression this time, and, hopefully, this one won't nearly get me gang-banged. Judging by the way Murdoc, the Great Green Sod moans weakly and sort of slumps to the ground once I've put my foot back down, I doubt it will.

"_Ta_ to you, too."

I maneuver myself round the lump of him and out the garage. I really do hope I've made the proper impression by now.

* * *

_{Awwr, Wiona's made a friend! Ahaha... This is was sort of an uneventful chapter, I think... Sorry about that. I'll have Chapter 8 posted as soon as I can! Thank you again for reading~! Please review, if you're up to it. Taah~! - n.t.}_


	7. 100 Pills

_{Hello, all! Here it is - chapter 7! (Right...?) Thank you to all who sent me such lovely reviews!! I appreciate them all! And thank you for those who've subscribed to the story! It's such an honor~!_

_Just a note, before we start - the way I meant for Wiona to be pronounced is "Wee - OH - nah". If you were confused at all, there you go~_

_For best quality reading, I suggest "Small Time Shot Away" by Massive Attack. I hope you enjoy~!}_

* * *

Another lovely, sunny morning. It didn't even seem as green out the windows.

I'd found my way to the foyer, luckily. It all looked quite different in the light; not quite as strange, which was strange in its own. All that'd seemed out of place last night appeared to be more at-home; the cactus-trees and stray skibbies looked a bit more serene, lying about on the floors and across the reception counter.

I'd found a bit of coffee-stained (or tea-stained… or something) scrap paper in one of the counter drawers, and a pen with a Daffy Duck head top. I had attempted to draft a thanking letter to Stu… but it proved to be quite a bit more difficult than I'd thought it'd be. There was a whole lot to include in the thank-you: attempting to save my sorry ness from Earney and his fat chums; taking me down to his flat after I'd done the impossibly embarrassing thing of collapsing in the kitchen; allowing me into this terribly peculiar place, where I'd accidentally stayed the night (which I seem to be doing a lot, often); and possibly showing me the most kindness any one person had shown to me in _years_. Quite a load to scribble onto one piece of parchment. So I'd ended up tying my boots instead.

I'm in the middle of strapping-up the second when I hear a _ding_ behind me. I turn round.

Noodle stands in the lift. She's got on a shirt twice her size – black with _THE CLASH _in red across the front, and it comes down to her knees. I don't see any trousers. "Where are you going, Wionasan?" she says, and steps out next to me.

"Oh," I say. I must seem as though I'm rushing out. "I'm gonna go home."

"Ah." Her hair's a bit of a mess, but her fringe is thick as always. Her eyes are completely hidden. "Would you like breakfast first?"

Oh_, god. _She's making this terribly difficult. "N… no, it's alright. But thank you. For everything, really." I remembered the soup, and how I hadn't eaten it. I'm beginning to feel like a right ungrateful cow.

"_Hai_," she says, quietly. She fiddles with the bottom of her shirt.

I turn back round and finish tying up my laces. Then I pick-up the Daffy pen.

"Here," I say, handing her the bit of paper on which I'd written a sorry thank-you. She looks down at it for a moment before taking it. She doesn't read it.

I grunt as I help myself up, and I turn to face her. She looks so small and skinny in her giant shirt. She just about comes to my chest. "It was really great to meet you, Noodle," I say.

She looks up at me through her dark fringe-forest. Her thin lips are unreadable, but judging by the way she's wrapping her tiny arms round my waist and pressing her head against my stomach, I'm assuming her and I feel the same – completely torn to bits. I'd only met her yesterday, this little person who had tossed herself from a window to greet us, and here she was, hugging me tight as anything. How did this happen?

"Alright," I say, sadly, quietly, and gently, I pull away. She lets go, and her hands dangle. My heart feels as though it's about to split in two, so I decide it's high time I book it before it's too late. "Got quite a trip to get on."

I grab my case, and I head out the door. I let it creak shut behind me.

I go round the house.

I look for my bike.

My bike…

"… Oh, _SHIT!"_

It's hanging off a tree!!

_My beautiful pupil-black shiny motorbike! _Tires completely shredded! Handlebars snapped! Exterior pocked with horrible giant holes! _Hanging vertically from the top of a dead tree!! _

My mouth's gone dry. I go toward it. I can't feel my knees. What could have possibly done this? And _why? _

I drop down, the numbness having reached to my calves. I look up at the twisted, tangled, utterly broken thing what was once the beautiful sparkly moped bike, for which I'd waitressed five bars and played seven horrible birthdays for seven horrible, snot-faced children. It'd taken me _three years_ to collect the money for that incredible vintage work-of-art… And now _look at it! _

"_Why_…"

And then I hear something.

Had it been any other noise, I would have not cared enough to turn around, but this sort of noise I've heard before. I'm not sure where, but I've certainly heard it, somewhere.

So I turn around.

And I'm conked on the head. I'm consumed by the black once again.

* * *

First, I'm frightened.

I feel as though it's still watching me, but it isn't. It was quite cold outside, so I can't be outside. It's warmer here, where I am.

Then I begin to smell the smells. There are lots of smells here, wherever I am, and most of which I recognize: gasoline and butterscotch and the salty sea. Cigarettes. There are some I don't recognize. There are lots of those, the ones I don't know.

And then there's a noise - _ping._

I open my eyes – oh, _God,_ and close them again. My head! _Shhhhit! _It's like a fiery blossom of pain erupting out the back of my skull! Ah, _Jesus_, two blackouts in a week! This can't be good for my sinuses.

Alright. I open my eyes again, pain pounding, and I find I'm in a room. It's a different room, different than all the other rooms I've woken up in. It's been quite the weekend for me.

It's bright in here. I'm on a couch. There are noises in here, and the smells – smells I barely recognize at all. Bread and egg. Tea.

I prop myself up with my elbows, and I find that my arms are terribly sore. I look about and deduce that I'm in a sitting area next to a small, silvery kitchen. I'm on one of the two pieces of sit-onable furniture, the other being a round leather ottoman, with my case leaning against it. There's a large window like the one in the room I'd slept in behind me, bleeding gobs of bright light that makes my eyes hurt, and my head. My poor, sore head.

I can't _believe_ I'm still here!

I fold my legs beneath me and bury my face in my hands. My breath must smell terrible; it'd been days since my last clean. I hadn't even had my shower yet. I'm positively disgusting! And yet, here I am, _still_ in this ridiculous house. I know I am, because the clouds outside the window are tinted with green. They remind me of Murdoc, and suddenly I begin to feel quite ill.

There's a knocking around from the kitchen, which makes me jump. I pick my head up and try looking above the counter, but I can't see anything. I wait a moment, worried. There comes another _clank_ and _bang_. I carefully pick myself up and get on my feet, my head feeling like it's stuffed with cotton and nails. I move slowly toward the counter, and see a small, dark head near the floor.

The face belonging to the head spins 'round to face me so quickly I nearly squeak with surprise.

"Hello, Wionasan!" Noodle's happy moon-face splits into a giant grin and she lunges toward me. "Welcome back!"

She embraces my neck and head in a tight squeeze, and I've got to lean myself over the steel counter so her sneakered feet can touch the ground, though she's awfully light.

"H-hallo Noodle!" My voice is a croak for the shock of all this feeling, but I've got to admit that it's terribly nice to be so warmly greeted. It'd been only a short while before this that I'd said goodbye.

She lets go and looks up at me honestly. "Your bike is quite broken. I'm terribly sorry."

Oh, shit. I'd nearly forgotten. "Ah… Yeah. Terrible that." I rest my arms on the counter and let my head hang heavy. What the hell am I to do now? I'm completely stranded, until I find a repairman. Do they _have_ motorbike repairmen in Essex?

Noodle dips her head as well. I'm terribly embarrassed at my reappearance in this house, but I can't help noticing, even now, that the room smells entirely good.

"Are you cooking?" I ask.

Noodle picks her face up again. She turns away from me, fiddles with something, and when she turns around again her hands are full with plates of food – eggs and toast and jam. She's smiling brightly again. "_Asa gohan."_

My mouth's watering. I'm absolutely starving_._ "Breakfast."

* * *

She isn't in her jammies anymore; she's got on a purple shirt with sleeves and a V-neck. Over her skinny white legs is a pair of short shorts. She looks lovely.

"Did you sleep well last night?" she asks me.

I move what's left of my eggs around my plate, chewing slowly. "Oh, yes. That room was great. Thank you." I keep on fiddling with my food, and I notice there's a dirtied envelope beneath my plate. I pick it up.

"Yes. It is so nice to have life return to this house," says Noodle. She's sitting on the counter, cross-legged. Her smooth pink shoes rest on top of her knees. "It was so quiet here without everyone. I sometimes believed I could hear the voices of my friends wandering the halls, as if the house had trapped them here, or they had taken on lives of their own. It was fascinating, but also terribly sad, like the building itself pined for company."

… _Jesus._ "W… you were living here by yourself, Noodle?"

She nods her head. "_Hai_, yes. It was myself and Mike-pun. We were the sole inhabitants until Murdocsan returned."

"H – how long were y… Who's Mike-pun?"

Noodle picks up her toast and her face lights up. "My monkey."

"Your wh - " I'm about to go on, but I'm interrupted by a great banging. It's coming from the doorway.

"For all the _knickers_ of _sin,_ where's my drink cabinet gone?" In from the hall comes the man, looking positively wretched. His horrible red eyes latch on me in an instant. "_YOU!"_

He comes at me. I hop out of my seat as quick as I can and circle round the dining table. Noodle unfurls her legs, leaps off the counter and grabs Murdoc around the waist in a single, fluid motion. She pulls back with all her slight weight. "Stop, Murdoc!"

But he keeps coming. His eyes are blazing. His skin is a putrid olive. "WHAT THE HELL IS _SHE_ STILL DOING 'ERE!"

Not knowing what else to do, I pick up the largest thing I could reach from off the table, and I chuck it at him. The thing bounces off his cranium and clatters to the floor with a loud _thump_ – and so does he.

I gasp. "Oh… _Christ_!" I've gone and incapacitated him, _again! _His skinny body lies motionless on the kitchen floor, face down, arms and legs bent at slightly awkward angles. Centimeters from his outstretched hand lies the small, square package that'd knocked him out.

I'm just standing there, looking down at him, when Noodle says, "What is that, Wionasan?"

"What? Oh." I remember I've got the envelope with me. I take another look down at the vegetabled Murdoc before opening the greasy letter. The front reads: MR M. NICCALS, MR 2D, MS NOODLE, MR R. HOBBS - KONG STUDIOS - THE LARGEST HILL – ESSEX. Suppose it really was the largest hill in Essex, then.

In the envelope is a single paper folded in threes. In small, squished printing at the top, it reads "MISHMOSH SOUND EMPORIUM", followed by a formal-looking address to "The esteemed musicians of Kong". "It's an invite."

"Really?" Noodle pops over to me, maneuvering herself around the green man's limby body. Attached to the letter by staples is a stack of four tickets, adverting a group called "THE BLACK BAGOONAS".

"Oh, _incredible!_" she says, and surprises me again by doing a set of high, bouncing hops next to me. "I love The Bee-Bees!"

"Really?" It's astonishing to see Noodle act her age.

And then 2D comes in from the hall.

He's wearing a white shirt with sleeves that nearly get to his wrists, but stop short. His jeans are rolled into cuffs at his ankles, which hang over grey socks with stray bits of fluff stuck to them. He's got a necklace on. It's the shape of a flat yellow hand. I wonder where he'd gotten all that, with all his things having been stolen. "Hallo," he says.

"Deesan!" goes Noodle, "We have such good news to share with you!"

I begin feeling extremely, unbearably exposed. Murdoc, still quite stuck on the floor, grunts quietly, and his fingers twitch.

Noodle jumps over his bony body. She leaps at 2D and wraps herself around his middle. "Wiona has returned to us! Our family is truly extending! And we've been given a gift!"

"Ah…_ God..."_ Murdoc starts turning over a little. I feel like I'm cornered.

"Weely?" says 2D. I look up to see that his depthless black holes – which I think I might finally be used to seeing there, instead of eyes – are on me. My face goes completely red.

"Yeah," I say, quietly, "Yeah, I… My bike's smashed. Someone had a serious go at it. It's hanging off that tree."

"And her time with us has grown longer!" says Noodle. She drops off 2D and grabs his hand. Her face is positively sunny with sweetness. "Is this not a fantastic day! Your breakfast is on the table."

2D looks from me to where Noodle had put the food, and I let go a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Murdoc mumbles.

Noodle pops back over to me. "May I?" she asks. I give her the letter. "'Course."

I keep my eyes low to the ground. Don't want him making a grab at my ankles or anything, and it's easier than looking at 2D. My face feels as if it's about to explode for all my embarrassment. What sort of person am I to still be in this house like this? Even if it wasn't for any fault of mine.

Noodle takes the note to 2D and holds it out for him to see. "Look, look, Deesan! Look, it's an invitation! Another precious gift!"

Murdoc, having finally brought his arms to his sides and his head off the ground, is letting go a stream of hushed obscenities that is steadily rising in decibels. "… -ing sow of a… -cking… caddy wench…"

I feel like giving him a kick in the gob, but I know that'd only land me in deeper shit than I'm already in.

"'Oo's the fourth one for then?" says 2D. I look over at them, and see Noodle's smiling.

"Wionasan!" She ducks beneath 2D's plate – which he'd taken off the table, and was eating standing-up – and came back over to me, once again. She put her arms round me as she's done before, and gave my waist another squeeze. "You shall accompany us!"

I know I've gone completely pale. I can't imagine what Stu must think of me now, stuck back in his life. I'm like gum on the bottom of their shoes. They can't get rid of me! I feel terrible; utterly guilty. Never before had I wanted so badly to shrivel up into a speck of nothing and blow out the window, into the green fog. Finally fly out of their lives.

But somehow, apparently, I'd managed to forget how incredibly kind Stu is. He says, "Oh, yeah! That'd be great!"

And I feel as though I shall fall over.

"Going t… _kill_…" Murdoc rises enough off the floor to grab onto the table. "…wish you'd never… _gah_…"

I notice 2D's expression change in my peripheral. He cranes his neck to see. "Oi, Murdoc, what you doin' on the floor?"

Murdoc's face, all twisted-up in a knot of pain, slowly rises up to me. His shaggy greaseball hair casts a shadow over his crazy eyes. "You… are going… t'regret… this…" he says in slow, even chunks like that.

I wrinkle my nose. "I'm sure I will."

"Did you slip or sumfing?" says 2D. Murdoc looks over at him and makes a horrible snarling sound.

"NO, I DID NOT _SLIP_, YOU LOATHSOME GIT! Your butch-banshee girlfriend's been attempting a hit on my life!"

Ah.

"She's not my girlfriend," says 2D.

Murdoc's face shifts from it's crumpled state of fury into one of earnest surprise. "W… Then what in _Satan's sink'_s she doing here!?"

"I brought him here, you stupid man!" I surprised myself with that. "If you'd pull your greasy head out your ass a moment, you would've known that!"

"Look, Ms._ Thhhing_," he growls at me. He's lifted himself off the floor. "I don't know who you _think_ you are, but _this_ is _my kingdom_! You amble in here and make yourself at home, but y'know somming? This is _my_ place. Y'get that? _Mine_. I think _you're_ the one who should consider removing her head from her own buttocks. _'Kay_?"

He's doubled over, but he's on his feet. He turns round and heads for the refrigerator. "Ungrateful… _sodding_ _cow_…"

I stand there a moment, clenching and unclenching my fists. He had a point, God damn it all. He was right.

"… I'll just be a moment," I say, and I turn for the door. Never have I needed a smoke more in all my life.


	8. Paralytic Dreams

{My god! Two parts in a day! This is ridiculous! I don't even have a song for it yet... That's how fresh it is! Enjoy~!}

* * *

_ / log 10: inv 20 – 10 – 05 20:23:04_ w._gage

_398.3 - beg inv:

_ ent. Inv sub 10, w.g.

w.g. [arms crossed – obviously irritable]: WELL. GO ON. WHAT IS IT YOU WANT FROM ME?

Pr. O invr: PLEASE TRY TO RELAX, MS. GAGE. ALL WE WANT YOU TO DO IS DENY OR CONFIRM RUMOURS.

w.g.: OH, RIGHT. YEAH. YOU LOT ARE ALL ABOUT GETTING THE TRUTH, EH? THAT'S WHAT YOUR INDUSTRY'S INTO, YEAH? THE _STRAIGHT FACTS._

Invr.: PLEASE, MS. GAGE, WE ONLY WANT TO HELP.

w.g.: HELP? HELP _WHO?_ I DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU AND YOUR HORRIBLE BUSINESS. YOU CAN TAKE YOUR RUMOURS AND SHOVE THEM BACK UP YOUR PIMPLY ARSE. NOW LET ME GO.

Invr. [patience wearing]: ALL WE WANT FROM YOU IS YOUR STORY, WHO YOU ARE, WHERE YOU'RE FROM. NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT YOU. YOU'RE COMPLETELY UNKNOWN.

w.g.: [pauses – gaze shifts down]. PERHAPS THAT'S WHAT I WANT. HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED THAT? EH?

Invr.: BUT YOU'RE AN ENORMOUS PART OF THEIR HISTORY! IF YOU ONLY TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF, YOU'D BE AN INSTANT IDOL, A HOUSEHOLD NAME.

w.g.: [rises from seat]: RIGHT, THAT'S IT. I'M DONE WITH THIS SHIT.

Invr.: WAIT! MS. GAGE, PLEASE!

[footsteps heard – thumping]

w.g. [distantly]: LEMME GO! GET OFF!

[sounds of struggling heard – smacking – male grunt]

Unk. Male 1 [distantly]: OI! WE COULD SUE YOU FOR THAT!

[door squeaking – another male grunt, weaker]

Unk. Male 2: RIGHT. FORGET IT. LET'S SCRAP THIS.

Invr. [irritably]: WASTE OF BLOODY TAPE.

_ log 10: inv 10 – 20 – 05 20:23:04_ w._gage

_398.3 - end inv/

The light of my cigarette looks like an angry eye in the fog. It's gotten quite a bit cooler since the morning; I see my breath in the form of little clouds. Even they seem a bit green.

I hadn't known where I was going when I'd left the kitchen, really. I'd just needed to leave, but I also quite badly needed a fag.

I'm currently standing on a porch. It's lined by metal rails. There was a sliding glass door at the end of the hall, and I'd gone to it. I suppose that just goes and proves Murdoc's point, that I've assumed the position of doing whatever I please in this house. Stupid man.

I pinch the cig between my middle and ring finger and pull it from between my lips. I imagine I'm literally blowing off steam, and send the smoke out in a long column of greenish-grey, which floats out and up and becomes part of the massive cloud surrounding this obscure studio-building on top of a hill. There's nothing to see but a wall of mist.

I feel as though I'm about to vomit. Why can't I just gracefully exit from Stu's life? Why did I have to linger 'round as I am? It's awkward enough as it is! I'm still just the girl he tried to rescue once, who lived above his flat. That's all. That's it. Nothing else. Just the girl who drove him here. The end.

I put the cig back in and suck on it, and just as I'm about to take it out again, the door behind me makes a sliding nose. I turn around.

"Hallo, Wionasan," says Noodle, sadly, "Please don't be cross with Murdoc. He isn't completely himself today."

Oh, he's not usually just a greasy tosser, then? "Thank you, Noodle, really, but he's got a point. I've been terribly rude to you all, intruding here as I have."

"Intruding? No, no!" She comes over to me and grabs my left hand in hers. "You've brought great joy to our lives, Wionasan! It is an honour to have you here with us! You are our guest!"

Oh, I do love her so. I take the cig out of my mouth and with both hands, I hold her head and give her a kiss on the top of the shaggy mat of hair. "Thank you, darling. You're completely too kind to me."

She giggles, and says, "Deesan is especially pleased, Wionasan! I've never seen him as happy as he is with you here!"

Oi. "Wh… Why do you say that?"

"Oh, he told me quite a lot about his journey with you! How you were so kind as to open your home to him, and to return him to _our_ home – such great things you've done for us! And you see, Deesan had become, ah, somewhat saddened and depressed before our family had split in four unique directions. It was as if the shadow of a dark specter were casting down upon him, causing his moods to turn heavy. Confidentially, I blame Murdocsan for this; he had caused Deesan a great deal of strife throughout our time together, so much so as to call it, ah, abusive and, uh, at times, terribly cruel! It would upset me often, even as a young child, as I had been then, to see Deesan become something of a, ah, human punching-bag, yes, on which Murdocsan could manifest his creative frustration. So, you see, I am extremely pleased to see Deesan return in good spirits, and I believe it to be greatly attributed to you, Wionasan! I thank you greatly for this!"

She hugs my head, and I feel as though I might erupt like some sort of human Krakatoa. That _prick!_

"I will be sure to phone a mechanic to repair your motorbike, Wionasan," says Noodle as she lets go, "But please, will you accompany us to tonight's live?"

"Tonight's what?" I'm so cross, I've forgotten everything having to do with a live anything.

"The Bagoonas!" Her cherub face splits into a giant grin.

Ah, _that _live. I don't know what to say. Yes? I'll come and make myself seem even more like the person Mur-dick thinks I am, and even more the girl who won't un-stick herself from Stu's life? Or no, I shan't, and I'll watch as her round angel-face breaks like a china plate.

"… Y-yes, I suppose I shall."

Little Noodle's joy at my agreement could fill a balloon. "Oh, thank you, Wionasan! What a fantastic day this is becoming!"

"Yeah," I agree absently, and just as I do, we hear a crashing coming from the kitchen. She and I look at one another a moment before she goes back in. I spit my fag out into the green abyss and follow behind.

We turn the corner in time to see a large white plate smack against the hall wall. It blooms into a thousand little pieces, and I cover my face and Noodle's to shy away the far-reaching bits. There's quite a bit of muffled swearing coming from the kitchen, and I feel as though I shall be ready to open a large container of whoop-ass on its originator.

We come to the entrance just as a wineglass flies out. I'm about to fall myself and Noodle to the floor when she does something I shouldn't have been so surprised seeing her do but was entirely, regardless. In early the same moment we see it, she brings her little foot exactly level with its path of trajectory, letting the thin glass crack against the sole of her shoe. The shards scatter in every direction other than ours.

She lowers her leg as slowly as I've seen any great kung-fu movie-star do it. I'm about to do something other than just mash my gums together when she calls out, "Murdocsan! Please do not throw things about! You could to harm to something."

"I! DON'T! CARE ABOUT HARMING ANYTHING!" There's another crashing-noise. "WHERE'S ALL MY DRINKS GONE?"

Noodle goes in, and I follow quickly.

There are bits of broken things everywhere; on the floors, on the table; next to the chairs in the sitting-area. A chair had been tipped. All the cabinet doors above the sink have been opened, as have the ones below the sink, and the ones below the counter. The refrigerator door was open, as well. There was quite a lot of banging coming from down there, but whoever was making it was out of view below the glass-strewn center island.

"_Tequila… Scotch… Ale…"_ I could hear all sorts of liquors being called listlessly from that direction. "… Where have they GONE?"

I look over to the sitting area, where there's a hunched over person, hiding themselves as best they can behind the leather ottoman. Stu's hands are covering his head. "'Ee's gone absolutely men'al!" he says quietly to us. I go over to him, cautiously. Noodle stays where she is, standing bravely and erect.

"I removed them, Murdocsan," she says evenly, "They caused a great deal of negativity in our home."

Murdoc's ugly head rears itself above the counter. His evil eyes are positively alight. "WHY IN ALL HELL'S ORCHESTRAS HAVE YOU DONE THAT FOR?" There's a trace of sadness in his roaring cry, which makes his anger come-off as slightly pathetic.

I bend down to 2D. "Are you alright?" I ask, as all sorts of images of him being the horrible Murdoc-man's "punching bag" flashing before my mind's eye.

He looks up at me with all the balefulness of a hurt puppy in his pothole eyes. "Don' worry about me! S'the kitchen I'm concerned about!"

"Ah, _sssshit_, all my drink!" goes the green man, "S'all gone! _All gone!"_

I hear a thump, and imagine him lying in a state of sober hopelessness. He makes a sound like the air being squished out a tire. "Aaaaeeegggooollleeeyyy."

Noodle goes over to him. I get up from where 2D's cowering and go toward the overturned chair, beneath which is the package I'd knocked the stupid shouting prick out with. I picked it up and imagined doing it again, but realized I'd probably be doing him a favour by that.

"I am deeply sorry, Murdocsan," says Noodle. She's got her little hand on the shoulder of the broken man, "It's for the good of us all."

"Jus' _shhhuddup_, you…" He breaks off into a puddle of dribbly insults I can't quite hear, but imagine aren't terribly creative with him in the state he's in.

I turn the package over in my hands. "What you reckon this is?" I ask 2D, in an attempt to distract him out of his sad-looking protective position. He cranes his blue-topped head over the ottoman to see. "Dunno," he says, still low to the ground. "Did it come wif anything?"

"I'm not sure," I say, "But whatever it is, it's awful weighty."

And then I notice the tag. I do a sort of double-take. "S'for me!"

"Weely?" 2D's finally gotten off the floor, and was coming to look. "'Oo's it from?"

"Dunno." I flip the card over, but it's got nothing but my name in big black capitals on one side. "Doesn't say."

2D examines it with his depthless eyes. Part of me wants terribly to open it, while another is terribly frightened that it was something ghoulish. How did anyone know I was here? Why would they send it here at all?

"Look, sweetheart… Get me sum of that coffee over there, will you?" Murdoc's voice is a mere, cracked version of what it usually is, like a scraggly shadow. "I feel as though I've been _dead_ and warmed up."

Noodle rises quickly and goes over to a dented-looking coffee machine. I fiddle with the wrapping of my creepy little parcel and am about to open it when she says, "Will you be well enough to attend the concert, Murdocsan?"

"Which one is that?"

"The one we've been sent tickets to!" says 2D, happily, "There're four of them!"

I put the package on the table.

"Ah, _Christ_, s'not another _publicity thing_, is it?" groans the green man, "_God_, load of rrrubbish they all are, awful as anything… But they keep on inviting us as a sort of _advertising shhhtick_. As if we'll distract from how incredibly _awful_ they are or summing… How'd y'reckon they knew we've gotten back t'gether, eh? S'like they can't _wait_ to _exploit_ us."

"It's the Mishmosh, Murdocsan!" says Noodle, pouring black coffee into three chipped, white teacups, "You applied for their subscrip-"

"Ah, right, right," he interrupts, "_God_, had I known then they'd be _using_ us, I'd have never sent in all those cereal box tops…"

Noodle sets the coffee down next to him, and brings the other two cups to me and 2D. She goes back and stands over his head. "It will be great fun, Murdocsan!" she says to him, "Please join us!"

"Yeah, _sure_. Why not."

"Oh, _hooray_!" She hops up and down again, which makes me smile. "A fantastic day, indeed!"

Then Murdoc grumbles something. "H… hang on. Who's the fourth?"

I make a face into my coffee.

"Wionasan!"

"OH, F'CHRISSAKE, _NO!_" I hear him pound at the floor. "FORGET IT! NOT GOING!"

"Aw, c'mon, Murdoc!" says 2D, which scares me a bit, "It'll be great!"

"OI! _SHUDDUP_! I will _NOT_ fraternize with the likes of _her_."

"But I thought you liked the Bagoonas!"

"IT ISN'T ABOUT THE BLOODY BAGOONAS!"

I watch as Murdoc pops up from behind the counter and tosses his teacup at 2D's head. 2D winces as it clinks against his brow and lands on the floor, completely saturating him in its hot contents. The cup smashes at our feet.

Murdoc points his crooked green finger at me. "IT'S _HER!_ _SHE'S _the reason! I'd rather run my _testicles _through a _meat-masher _than attend anything with that_ terror! _I'M! NOT! GOING!" He picks himself up and moves toward the door, mumbling. "_Ssstupid… idiot people…"_

Once he's gone, I look back at 2D. He's got a hand on his head, beads of coffee dripping from his spiked hair. "I'm so sorry," I say, stupidly, "Are you alright?"

He looks down at the package on the table, in a sort of sad way. "Yeh, I'm awright. Told you 'ee's a tossah."

I laugh, sadly. "Hoped you'd been exaggerating." I look over at Noodle. She's got her head down. "I'm sorry, Noodle, really," I say to her, "I don't need to go. I'll only ruin the fun."

Her head pops up at me and she shakes it. "No, no! Please, come!"

My brows rise. "Really?"

"Yes! Murdoc's the one who's ruined things." She sticks her lip out. "I dislike him when he's like this."

My _god_! To make little Noodle upset, he must truly be the king of shlongs! I watch 2D grab himself a towel from one of the open draws and try his coffee-covered hair and face with it. "Well, then. Thank you!" I say.

Noodle smiles a thin-lipped smile at me, then looks about the kitchen with her fringe-covered eyes. "I shall clean the mess he's made now."

I look about, too. "I'll help," I say, and bend down to right the overturned chair.

2D rubs his head with the towel. "Shall I get the mop?" he says.

I've just put the chair on its feet when I realize I've had a question to answer since the previous night. "Dee, what're you going to do about all those stolen things?"

And then I smash my teeth together. _I've called him Dee!_

"S'not a problem, weely," he says simply, "I'd been wanting some new things. I'll jus' pop 'round the shops 'n get summore."

"Oh." I try forgetting about the red that's snuck in my face. _Stupid me! _Calling him a nickname like that. Brash as I please. As if I hadn't already made myself far too comfortable in their home like I had, I've begun calling him as though we were close mates. I don't think I could get much lower on the classy-scale than I am already. "Alright. Cool."

His answer still hadn't explained the appearance of a snazzy new outfit. His shirt shoulders are browned with cold coffee.

With the towel 'round his shoulders, he goes to get the mop.

* * *

_You haven't finished yet. _

"I… I'm s… sorry-"

_Leave it alone. You've made a great mess of things. _

"Please, sir, no! Really, I… I haven't… I… There's time left! There's time left!"

_Shut up! You can't keep expecting this of me. _

"N… no, sir… no."

_Go, now. And don't muck it up. _

"Th… th… thank you… sir, thank you."

_It's your last chance. _

"Y… yes, sir, yes… I'll do it right! Really… I… I'll do it!"

_You will. You haven't a choice. _

_Go, now. And be quick about it._


	9. Cetophobia

**OH MY GOD! **Hello! Ha! So sorry for the hiatus...! I didn't plan it! Things just got really busy, and I didn't really know how to start this chapter... But here it is! Thank you all so, so much for your extremely encouraging comments, and here it is - Chapter 9~! If you'd like/ want to bother, I think it may go along well to the song "The Late Great Libido" (ha) from Menomena (whom I saw the other day, and I _highly _recommend~). I really hope you enjoy~! :D

OH - and also, I'm sorry the last chapter was a sort of cryptic-segments sandwich... but hopefully, it'll all make a bit more sense later... Ha.

And one more thing, I promise: It's quite a bit easier for me to write in past-tense than present-tense... I mean, rather than "_I look_", "_I looked"_... So I really hope I don't upset anyone with the switch... It's just so much easier for me. But if anyone would much rather read the story in the old style, then I totally will, so just let me know if that's how you feel ... :D Enjoy!

* * *

_ / log 11: inv 23 – 11 – 05 15:09:28_ s._pot

_489.2 - beg inv:

_ ent. Inv sub 11, s.p.

Pr. O invr: HELLO, MR. D. WE'RE SORRY TO HAVE TO CALL YOU BACK HERE, BUT WE'D LIKE FOR YOU TO ANSWER A FEW MORE SHORT QUESTIONS. WE'LL BE DONE IN A JIFFY.

s.p.: OH, YEAH, SURE. GO AHEAD.

invr: GREAT! FANTASTIC. ALL RIGHT, DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH MS. WIONA GAGE, PLEASE.

s.p.: OH, AH. WELL. LET'S SEE… [quiet – then suddenly] OH! AH, SORRY. UM. WHO'S THAT?

invr: [brief pause] WHAT?

s.p.: OH, AH, WELL, I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS. SORRY.

invr: [pauses again] WHAT DO YOU MEAN? YOU DO KNOW HER!

s.p.: NOPE. NO. DOESN'T RING A BELL. SORRY.

invr: [exasperated] _WHAT DO YOU MEAN? _

s.p.: I'VE NEVER MET WIONA GAGE.

invr: [quietly] THIS IS RIDICULOUS. _YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW HER!_

s.p.: [scratching head] AWFUL SORRY, MATE. I'D TELL YOU IF I COULD, REALLY. BUT I CAN'T. YOU KNOW.

invr: [excitedly] WAIT. WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

s.p.: [pauses – quietly] MEAN BY WHAT?

invr: YOU'D TELL ME WHAT IF YOU COULD?

s.p.: [brief pause] I DIDN'T SAY THAT.

invr: [loudly] _YES YOU DID!_

s.p.: NO, I DIDN'T.

invr: [loudly] YOU _DID!_

s.p.: I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE ON ABOUT.

invr: [louder] YOU SAID! JUST NOW!

s.p.: [adjusts seating] I'D REALLY OUGHT TO BE GOING, ACTUALLY.

invr: NO, NO! TELL ME, PLEASE! WHO IS WIONA GAGE? YOU MUST KNOW _SOMETHING_ ABOUT HER!

s.p.: [pauses briefly] NOTHING. I DON'T KNOW NOTHING.

invr: [pauses - sighs] ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT, GO AHEAD. GO ON. YOU'RE FREE.

s.p.: [smiles] AH, THANKS BLUD! WOULD'VE BEEN KNOCKED INTO TOMORROW IF I'D SAID ANYTHING! CHEERS TO YOU!

invr: YEAH. WHATEVER.

[door clicks open – shuts.]

invr: PRAT.

_ / log 11: inv 23 – 11 – 05 15:09:28_ s._pot

_489.2 - end inv/

* * *

As the sun dipped low and I sat at the head of the bed, I found myself looking mindlessly down upon my pair of dark, skinny-legged jeans; my unassuming grey T-shirt; a clean pair of knickers; and my socks, all spread across the mattress. If I could approximate my feelings at that moment as I gazed, empty-headedly, at the last of the spare clothing I'd brought with me from home, I'd suppose they'd be most accurately defined beneath "utterly baffled".

I fingered the sheets. Thick, wet collections of my hair dripped cold beads onto my shoulders, soaking though the towel over my shoulder and down to my shirt.

I'd gotten my shower. I'd had little Noodle stand watch for me.

After we'd swept-up the kitchen, there wasn't much to say. Stu, his broom in hand, had looked at me, then at Noodle, and said, "S'pose we'd best prepare for the show then, eh?"

I'd blinked stupidly, not realizing that it was, in fact, quite late into the afternoon. I'd scratched my temple and wondered absently what three blackouts within a weekend did to one's health and wellbeing.

Noodle had grinned, in her hand a bottle of window-cleaner. "Oh, yes! I shan't wear something like this to the Bagoonas! I've got to change!"

She looked back at me. I'd awkwardly moved my scratching fingers from my forehead to the back of my sweaty neck. "Er. Well, I'd… really love a shower, but…"

"Oh! I shall show you to the showers," said the girl and picked herself off her chair. I rose up to follow and took a last glance at 2D, who'd seemed quite preoccupied with vacantly twisting the handle of his broom with one hand. I'd left him there and followed Noodle into the hall, wondering quietly what sorts of things he was thinking then.

His black eyes had been cast down, his face had been expressionless, but the manner in which his brows had collected in a sort of steeple beneath his blue bangs as he watched the turning of his broom had given me the impression that the thoughts cycling through his mind at that time were of a possibly sad nature. The towel round his neck had been stained brown with cold coffee.

I ran my hand up over my face and pressed-back my soggy hair. That I would even care enough to give _that_ much thought to Stu's expression – or, worse, the _lack thereof_ – was excruciating! At what time did I become this silly, oversensitive, over-thinking _deadweight_? I didn't know these people! They didn't know me! What should I care if Stu's apparent submission to his greasy, green housemate could be bothering him? If whatever had eaten and regurgitated my motorbike _hadn't_ eaten and regurgitated it, I would be back at my flat right now! I'd have returned to my life! My sad, penniless, jobless slug of a life! I could be _napping_ right now!

Jesus. What am I doing? _What _am I _doing?_

I shook my wrist and checked the time on my crude little knock-off of a watch. It was nearly an hour before little Noodle's band would go on. I needed to dress.

I'd call a bike shop tomorrow. I'd wake early, search through the books, find somewhere that could possibly repair the bent-up remains of what was one my proud stallion of a moped motorbike.

I'd find another motel, too. I'd leave this house and stay there till my bike's repaired. I'd thank Stu; I'd thank Noodle – and I'd leave. I wouldn't reenter their big, strange home ever again. I'd return to my life. I'd find another job somewhere. Waitressing, maybe. I'd pay off the repairs. I'd catch up on my rent.

Just like before. Like usual.

I unbuttoned my trousers and squeezed my towel to my hair.

* * *

Noodle had replaced her V-neck with a black band shirt with the words "THE BLACK BAGOONAS" in large, white letters. She also had a new hat – a brown knit thing with large, round ears and straps that tied beneath her chin. Her eyes were, once again, completely obstructed by jet-black fringe.

She and I waited in the garage as 2D pulled out a car. There weren't very many to choose from, and the one he did choose seemed to be the least assuming. It was a dark, boxy ride with little to say for itself. I wasn't even sure of the brand.

He stalled it in front of us and reached to open the passenger-door. "Hop in!" he said out his window.

Noodle bounced excitedly, which made me smile, and entered the backseat. I let myself in through the opened door.

"Wiona-san! Here!"

Noodle reached forward to hand me a plastic CD case as 2D began to back-out. "It's my favourite album," she explained.

From the cover, a pair of extremely white eyes bore at me out of a face painted completely red. Beneath it read "B.B.'s – B-Sides".

"Well. Alright, then!" I popped the case open. Past 2D's window slid the image of the grimy Winnebago that supposedly belonged to the Mur-man. A sour pang tickled my stomach.

"Track three and seven are the very best, I think," Noodle advised. 2D stalled as the garage door slid open. I hadn't seen him hit any buttons… so I guessed it to be either haunted or automated.

"But the others are fantastic, too," she continued, "so it doesn't really matter. Play track three first, though, please."

I laughed quietly and pushed the CD into what I hoped was the CD player. Luckily, as we pulled out into the dying rays of sunlight that peeled through the green fog, the audio system appeared to animate. I pressed the skip button, and Noodle waited patiently for the song to begin.

"Oh, oh! This is it!" she whispered as the first strains of a heavy, weighted bass line were strummed.

"Oh, I lov this one," said 2D, quietly.

We dipped bumpily down the hill and toward the giant KONG gate, which looked beastly in the thick shadows of the early evening, as the sounds of expertly-written and passionately-played instruments washed over us. Stu tapped his long fingers against the wheel and softly bobbed his head as he drove.

* * *

The Mishmosh Sound Emporium was an unassuming cube of a venue that squatted along an equally unassuming lane of what looked to be unused factory buildings. The only clues to the Emporium's true nature were the lopsided sign above the main doors, and the giant line snaking out of them.

"This is amazing," I muttered to myself. The line went on for blocks!

"Indeed!" said Noodle excitedly.

2D killed the engine, and with it, the tenth track of the B-Sides in mid-jam. From inside, the muffled booms and bangs of a live shook through the Emporium's walls. "Have they already started?" I wondered aloud.

"Oh, no," said 2D, "Must be the opener. Listen to 'em. They don' know wot they're doing."

I laughed a little and watched as he and Noodle swung themselves out their doors. I followed suit, exiting our unglamorous vehicle, and watched curiously as a few of the perspective concert-goers across the road looked over at us in an odd, intrusive way.

Noodle skipped across. 2D didn't seem to notice, but as we neared, the more eyes seemed to snap in our direction. Then the twittering began.

"Oh, my god!" "Look, look!" "Can't be…" "No way!"

Girls with hair all done-up and lots of leather whispered behind their hands and grinned. We were barely cross the street, and it seemed that everyone had something to say about us.

Well. Not _us_, I assumed. _Them_.

Little Noodle and Stu led the way to the end of the line, and once there, those in-line before us turned and gasped and widened their eyes. Still, neither band-mate seemed to notice.

Finally, a man with a shaved head and a pierced nostril smiled at 2D and presented him with a wrinkled napkin and a small pocket pencil. "Mr. 2D, sir? Could I have an autograph?"

I watched 2D as he calmly and causally look over at this obviously quite overwhelmed gentleman. He took the napkin and the pen. "Oh, sure fing!" he said.

This seemed to open the floodgates, metaphorically. Now, all of our line-mates seemed to have found their own crumpled napkins and tiny pens to push, some at 2D, some down toward little Noodle, who accepted them all in a similar, casual fashion, grinning whilst. All sorts of giggly girls seemed to have found quite a bit to have Stu sign, a lot of which seemed to be bare skin. Not knowing what else to do, I sort of recoiled in on myself. As I watched this madness in awe, I made my prime objective to stay as out-of-the-way as possible.

I suppose it was now unquestionably safe to assume their band had made quite a name for itself, after all.

"Mr. 2D!"

Stu looked up from the arm of a tan young woman with quite a lot of blonde hair at a voice that seemed to cut through the chatter.

"Mr. 2D!" it said again. Noodle looked up, too – her, from the jeaned knee of a man with a white-blonde Mohawk, who could have quite possibly been having the best night of his life. A small, greasy-looking man with a little amount of black hair on his head and face poked through the shoulders of the mosh. He gave them a stale smile.

"Mr. 2D!" he said once more, a bit more exasperatedly, "Miss Noodle! Ha, yes, hello!"

He pushed he way forward with difficulty, until he was standing, sort of hunched, before them. "Welcome to the Mishmosh! Please, follow me!"

The man turned and made a parting motion with his hands. A bit less submissively than the Red Sea had to Moses, the now-moderately disappointed but nonetheless excited crowd parted for the little man and the starlets behind him. I, no longer very sure of what to do at all, followed, which rewarded me a few angry stares from the crowd.

"S'such an honour to have you both here!" said the man as we entered the Emporium. After a short hall, it seemed to open onto a quite large, open expanse of floor mostly filled with people. Off to the right was a stage. 2D was right; it must have been an opener. Hardly anyone cared to even sway to the beat.

"This way!" Our hunched guide showed us to a little bar against the wall. He disappeared for a moment, then returned with a plastic cup of something, which he presented to 2D.

It was then that the man seemed to notice me. His exceptionally white eyes traced from my boots to my face.

"Anything the matter, ma'am?"

_Ma'am_?

"Oh, she's wif us," said Stu over the mediocre drum-line blasting through the sound systems.

The man's dark brows perked up and he clapped his hands together. "Oh! Ha, I see! Well, then, ah."

He turned around once again and returned with another cup of something for me. I smiled at him.

"Thanks," I said quietly.

The man gave us all a large, joyless smile and said, "Lovely! Do let me know if you'd like anything. Ah… Do enjoy!"

He bowed a little and walked away.

I looked over at Stu. He looked at his drink, then at Noodle and I. "Shall we?" he said.

Noodle bounced slightly and took my hand. "Yes, yes!" she said, taking Stu's as well. "Let's get a good spot!"

As the final song from the crappy starter band finished and the frontman shouted, "_THANK YOU, DUBLIN!"_, Noodle led us through the thick of the crowd. Everyone clapped half-heartedly as the band retreated from the stage.

"They must be next!" whispered Noodle. She seemed to have found a small spot for us to stand and released our hands with a grin. "This will be _awesome!_"

I smiled back at her. "I bet it will!" I said, then pulled her to the side and out of the way for an antsy couple to push their way through.

"Load of tossers" said the female, all red in the face.

"Seems the opener's put everyone in poor spirits," I said to Stu. He nodded.

"Yeh," he said. Then he handed me his drink. "'Old on a minute."

I watched him crouch down and tell Noodle something. Then she smiled and swung her thin little leg over Stu's shoulders. She situated herself a little before Stu righted himself again and she giggled a little at the sudden increase in elevation.

Stu looked back over at me and smiled. "Better safe n'sorry, s'what I always say," he said, taking his drink again.

I was in awe. They were so happy. Noodle's hands rested lightly on Stu's head; Stu held on to her tiny ankles. The way in which they stood together gave them the appearance of the perfect combination of people. Never would I ever have imagined Stuart like this. It made me almost sad, how sweet it was.

Then the lights went out. Everyone cheered.

"_Aaah!_" went Noodle. My heart picked up its step a little as the thick bass line of a song I didn't recognize from the B-Sides sounded, seeming to make the very atoms of the floorboard tingle. Then a few spotlights went on, and the stage became almost completely obstructed by waving hands and bodies. I stepped on my toes to see the band – black-clad, their heads down in concentration as they struck another chord. I had to take evasive action to keep my drink from the range of the flailing arms of someone on my right.

Noodle pounded her little fists in the air. I mentally shrugged and gave a shout as well, just as the band began to really lay thick into their song. It was well good, too – all weighty drum lines and wicked guitar riffs. It was also, I hate to admit, quite fun, being out and about like this. I hadn't been out in ages, even if it was with the people I felt I was burdening myself upon.

"_Welcoooooooooome!"_ boomed the frontman once they finished, "_Let's try n' have a grand old time, yeah!"_

The crowd loved it. Everyone either whistled or cheered or clapped or hollered. Noodle kept on raising her fists and yelled herself silly. The drummer smashed his sticks together with a count-in.

Then something peculiar happened.

This is how it went: as I shifted my hand down, resting it against my thigh, I noticed Stu do the same in my peripheral. I wouldn't have given this much thought, of course, had his fingers not grazed mine. I wouldn't have given _that_ much thought, either, if it hadn't been for the way he sort of let them linger there. And had he not lightly, ever so lightly, began to intertwine his with mine, I would have passed it all off as coincidence. But he did.

And all of the sudden, it seemed as though the band had begun to play slower, quieter, and from farther away. The cheering melted away, too, until it was almost as if everything had been put into a bubble, and what was once quite dark and all around me felt like it were a wall's width away.

I heard myself speaking. "Ah. Um." I sounded terribly stupid. Blood rushed past my ears with loud, heavy beatings. My tongue felt cold. "Be right back."

I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, but before I could stop myself, I had about-faced and begun squeezing through the crowd.

I hadn't fully realized it before, I suppose, but I seemed to have subconsciously located the restrooms when I'd entered the Emporium, because that's where my feet seemed to be headed. I clumsily knocked myself through the elbows of excited bodies, which now seemed quite close, indeed, until I arrived at the swinging door of the lady's loo and pushed myself through it.

It wasn't 'till I was at one of the sinks that I began to recollect myself, and the more of myself returned, the more I realized how completely, utterly and totally _stupid_ I was being. It was as if with that miniscule brush of skin, those floodgates that had cracked when I'd first seen Stu in that alley had begun bursting wider, and all manner of infuriating swells of things I'd thought I'd never feel again rushed through my brain.

I looked up at the grimy mirror, and I then noticed how grimy the rest of the facilities were. It was terribly dark, with a single, bluish light hanging above my head. The stalls' doors were mutilated with the scribblings of the drunken concert-goers before me.

I looked into my reflection's eyes. This was awful. What was the matter with me? _Honestly?_ I hung my head. It was like having a scab ripped off a wound. I was acting so childish. I felt _exposed_.

I jumped at the sound of a squeak behind me. One of the stall's doors had been opened.

"You alright, lov?"

An olive-skinned woman with tightly dread-locked hair and several facial piercings looked at me from within the mirror. Each of her many dreads was dyed in a different colour.

I turned a little grudgingly round to face her. "No, no. I'm fine. Really, fine."

The woman's brows rose above her large, dark eyes. They were beautiful eyes.

"Alright," she said, clearly unsure, "Y'look rather pale."

I sighed and clenched my eyes shut. This was humiliating, standing in this dark loo, talking to this obviously concerned person. I felt as though I'd been caught. "No, honestly. I'm hundred-percent. Thanks."

I opened my eyes again as the woman neared the sinks. As she turned the tap on, I made for the door.

"Hang on."

I turned with my hand on the door. The woman shut the tap off again and gazed at me as one would a prime suspect in the midst of the scene of the crime. Then she said, questioningly, "Wiona? Wiona Gage?"

I blinked. I was almost positive I'd never seen this pierced person in all my life… But there was undoubtedly something about her…

My god. "… _Sholeen?_"

The woman smiled widely and quickly nodded.

"Sholeen _Simmons?_"

She began to laugh. In the way all girls do when reunited after seemingly countless years, I suppose, we embraced one another out of sheer amazement of the circumstance. I, not quite sure of anything at the moment, remained a bit stiff.

"My _Yoo!_" The woman who was a mere whisper of the teenaged Sholeen Simmons I knew pulled back and held my shoulders, "It's been _ages!_"

I hadn't any words to speak. I mean, my _god!_ Life had surely chewed _me_ up and spat me back out, but _her… _

Gone were the lively locks of chocolate hair and expensive-looking button-up vests of our youth. Her sleeveless T was a tattered, sloppy, pee-coloured thing, and her jean shorts appeared to have been run through a paper-shredder and menaced by third-graders with pastels before she'd put them on. She had a single silver stud through her perfect right brow, a ring through her full, shapely bottom lip, and another stud painfully pierced through the skin between her forehead and the arch of her nose. But it was undoubtedly true that she _was_ Sholeen, somewhere beneath the grungy façade. Seeing her like this... It was bizarre. It made me feel strange. _Old. _

"Sholeen, whuh… What are you doing here?"

She smiled and stood back, looking contented. The Bagoonas pounded through the loo's walls.

"I'm here with my boyfriend, Dave," she said proudly, "He's the owner of this place, yeah. He and I've been going-on for six months now, can you _believe_ it? It was him what helped get me out of Crawley. Hired me as a booking-agent-sort-thing. Don't know what I'd do if it hadn't been for him. He gets me into all sorts of shows n' things for free. S'_great!" _

She laughed. I smiled, but with quite a bit of difficulty. Once-so-classy Sholeen, working in a place like _this?_ It was all so _wrong!_

"What about you then, eh?" The woman with the rainbow dreads cocked her head and smiled earnestly at me. "What're _you_ doing here?"

… Oh, god. I couldn't. I couldn't _possibly._

My tongue went numb again. I completely froze. There was no way I could tell her I was with… Well. Stupid, stubborn pride wouldn't allow me to explain to her all that had happened in the last few days. I must have looked like a total idiot, too, because she began to look at me in that worried sort of way again.

"Yoo?"

"Ah. I've got to go. Sorry. Ah, I'll see you soon. Alright?"

I turned round against every loving, moral fiber in my body, striving to disregard the hurt and utterly baffled expression on Sholeen's studded face, and left the loo.

I'd begun quickly cutting through the crowd and back toward the entrance door – having originally planned to get a bit of air and farther from both Sholeen and Stu, realizing how deeply I've dug myself whilst – when I stop. I freeze once again, this time not for petty embarrassment, but a sudden wave of recognition churned in disbelief.

In the midst of the crowd mere meters from where I stood, a plastic beer cup in his thick hand, stood one of Earney's fat cronies. His sunken eyes bore into mine.

* * *

Chapter 10 will come really soon - promise~ Thanks so much for reading!

~ n.t.


	10. Overdose

_Sexy things are contained within~! _Really! Enjoy~!

* * *

_ / log 12: inv 18 – 12 – 05 02:17:30_ noodle

_697.1 - beg inv:

_ ent. Inv sub 12, noodle

Pr. O invr: ER, OKAY. HELLO, MISS NOODLE. THANK YOU FOR COMING ONCE AGAIN. THIS WILL BE THE LAST INTERVIEW, WE PROMISE.

Noodle: OH, YES. PLEASE, GO AHEAD.

Invr: EXCELLENT. HA, ALRIGHT. [takes breath] COULD YOU PLEASE DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH ONE MISS WIONA GAGE.

[Noodle pauses (08.2 sec) – shakes head]

Noodle: I AM DEEPLY SORRY, BUT I CANNOT DISCLOSE THAT INFORMATION.

Invr [sighs sharply]: LOOK. _PLEASE_, IF YOU COULD TELL ME _ANYTHING_ ABOUT WIONA GAGE, IT WOULD BE AN _ENORMOUS _CONTRIBUTION TO OUR PROJECT! _PLEASE._

Noodle [bows head]: SORRY, SIR. WE HAVE CLASSIFIED THAT INFORMATION OUT OF RESPECT TO THE PERSON IN QUESTION. IF YOU WOULD LIKE, I COULD EASILY EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT OUR FUTURE PLANS AND POSSIBLE MUSICAL ENDEVOUR –

Intvr [interrupting]: NO. NO THANK YOU, JUST… YEAH. IT'S FINE. YOU'RE FREE TO GO.

[Noodle smiles – rises to leave. bows]

Noodle: I THANK YOU ON BEHALF OF OUR FAMILLY FOR YOUR COOPERATION, SIR!

Intvr: YEAH. JUST GO ON.

[door opens – shuts]

[Intvr sighs]

_ / log 12: inv 18 – 12 – 05 02:17:30_ noodle

_697.1 - end inv/

* * *

..

I pulled away from the spot quicker than if I'd been set aflame.

It was him; I was sure of it. He was tall and thick with a shaven head. His dark, deep-set eyes were sharp and sure, without any human warmth at all. It was without question – it was one of the goons Earney had brought with him that night.

If the crowd had been riley before, they were really out of their heads now. I was being pushed and bopped from every direction, but I didn't care. I didn't care whether Sholeen would find me, either, nor that I would be returning to Stu after so stupidly wigging-out. Seeing that man again had unnerved the pants off me. My innards had turned to ice.

He'd seen me. He'd been _staring_ at me. There was such anger in his eyes.

I tried retracing my steps back to where I'd left Noodle and Stu, but it proved quite difficult. Everyone was jostling about so much, I could barely see. The Bagoonas blasted their epic riffs so hard, I felt as though my eyes were rattling in their sockets. I must have really been in a daze on my way to the toilets. How _stupid_ could I be?

It was dreadfully dark in here, but for a small number of searchlights they had suspended from the ceilings. They scanned over the crowd in erratic fashions, flashing occasionally over my face. I kept on having these short visions of seeing the goon standing before me in the light, then having it glide away once again, leaving us in the dark. It was like bumbling along through a nightmare, but if it hadn't been for those goddamn spotlights, I would have never seen the silhouette of a round-eared hat in the pitch-darkness. I sighed in sweet relief.

I pushed toward them. The light had gone as quick as it had appeared, but I never deterred my gaze away from where it'd caught those knit ears. I nearly tripped over the boot of someone at my side before I'd reached them, but finally, I did.

I touched Stu's shoulder. He turned, and his eyeless eyes widened.

"One of those men from the alley is here!" I shouted at him. His brows lowered, but he said nothing.

I stood on tiptoe and said it again, putting my hand to my mouth.

"_One of the men from the alley! He's here! He saw me!_"

This time, it looked as though he understood. He looked to his right and left, then shouted back at me, "Where's he?"

I shook my head. "I don't know!"

He looked at me, then up at Noodle. She'd been looking down toward me, too.

Carefully, he picked her off his shoulders and set her back down on the ground. "We've got to go!" I heard him say to her. Wehile most other girls her age would have undoubtedly put up a bit of a squabble at having to abandon the live of a beloved band, Noodle only nodded her head.

Stu took her hand and straightened up again. He bobbed his head toward the entrance. "We should go then, eh!" he said to me over the last, throbbing drum line of the previous song.

"_Ta, everybodyyyyy!"_ sang the Bagoonas' frontman, which met by a swelling wave of approval. By the time they finished counting off to the next set, we were out the door.

* * *

It was chilly outside, and terribly dark. From the contrast to the thick humidity of the Emporium, I began to shiver a little. The air tasted of rain.

Neither Noodle nor Stu asked me anything as he unlocked our humble ride across the road. I couldn't help taking quick, nervous looks as we crossed.

It wasn't till we were all in that Noodle said, gently, "Wiona-san?"

As Stu began to pull-out, I turned in my seat to face her. Her round little face was so concerned.

I said to her, "Noodle, I'm so sorry about this, really." We started to crawl forward. Rain tapped lightly against the windshield glass. "I just… I thought I saw someone who - "

"Wuuuaaagh!" went Stuart.

I spun back round in my seat. Standing before us in the pale glow of the headlights, his head covered with a hood, was a man in the centre of the road.

Stu stomped his foot against the brake. Noodle screamed a harmless, high-pitched wail. We all lurched forward against the momentum. I put my hands against the dashboard and squeezed my eyes shut. The car's brakes screeched along the soggy asphalt.

We shuddered to a stop. I waited for my breath to return before I dared to look.

Stu's mouth was agape. "Wah the _fock_ just happened?" he gasped.

The man in the road was gone.

I turned round to face Noodle again. "You alright?" I said. My voice was wavering.

Her shoulders were high, and her hands were tucked tight beneath her thighs. She nodded quickly.

Stu ran his hand through his hair. I looked back at the dark road. It was completely empty.

"_Jesus_," whispered Stu. Slowly, he put his hands back on the wheel and began to move us forward again.

It was, once again, undeniable – the disappearing man was Earney's goon.

* * *

The Emporium was a half-hour's journey from the studio. The rain had surely picked-up since, but otherwise, the ride'd been eventless since the apparition of the hooded crony. My heart had settled quite a bit since then, too. Noodle had managed to calm herself to the point of slumber, which I subtly considered impressive. Her knit-capped head rested against her knees, which she'd brought to her chest. I could just hear her slight breathing beneath the beating of the rain.

I watched the dark roadside pass through my side window. My head was heavy, both physically and metaphorically.

I took a breath, and said, quietly, "I do apologize, Stu."

Stuart glanced over at me. His expression was earnest. "Is fine," he said back, "Nothin' to be sorry about, eh."

I looked back out my window. I tried again, "I mean, about all of these things. About tonight. About that night in the alley. About staying at the studio so long. Y'know. _Everything_."

I saw him look over at me again in my peripheral.

"Aw," he whispered, "Don be silly."

"I mean, it's just so _weird_ to have had all this stuff happen so close together like this. I just… So much has happened. I don't _know_ what's happening, and I… I don't know." I rested my head against the window's glass. It felt cool against my temple. "I don't know what to do."

Stuart didn't say anything. I began thinking about the voice… The voice that'd begun haunting me since that night in the motel. I thought about my bike, and how it'd looked as though something very large, very angry, and very sharp had fed upon it. I thought about Sholeen. I thought about the way Earney's eyes were completely devoid of any pity or emotion that night, which now felt like ages ago. I thought about the goon's face in the headlights. His eyes were Earney's eyes – cold. Emotionless.

I thought of my life before. I thought about the way things had always stayed below a certain level of oddness – how I'd managed to live my life rather quietly. I thought about the contrast between the then and now.

It was all _really_ unnerving.

I crossed my arms and shut my eyes. The rain sounded like the tapping of a thousand little fingers.

* * *

We rolled up the scraggly hill and pulled into the garage. Stu pulled the keys from the ignition and turned round to look at Noodle. She was still quite asleep, her head against her knees.

"Aw," he said, and unbuckled himself.  
I followed him as he opened Noodle's door and bent himself in. When he pulled back out, he had her asleep across his arms. When he saw me looking, he smiled.

"No need to wake 'er," he whispered.

I smiled back at him. As he started toward the lift, I looked about myself. It was _quite_ dark. I could spot the Winnebago in the shadows.

"Er. Hang on."

Stu stopped and turned back toward me.

I swallowed. "Ah. I'll come with."

Mm. I hate this.

Luckily, Stu was kind enough not to laugh or anything, and instead just nodded and turned back round.

* * *

Carefully, Stu entered Noodle's room and placed her slight, sleeping frame upon her bed. Then he took the edges of her comforter and sort of wrapped her loosely within them. He stood back a moment and admired his work, then looked back over at me. He smiled his gap-toothed smile again.

Quietly, he came over to meet me. I made way for him as he shut her door.

"Well, then," he said quietly, "Off to bed for me as well, eh - '

"Um."

Aw, crap. I hadn't meant to say that. Too late now.

Stu raised his brows at me.

I scratched my arm, feeling excruciatingly silly. "Can you cah…"

A second passed. Stu's brows lowered. _God_, what the _fuck_ am I _doing_?

"Cah… Could you come down. With me. To the garage."

His expression didn't falter much. He said, "Yeh, sure," as though my request was nothing out of the ordinary and why was I making such a fuss out of it.

He passed me by, and once he did I squeezed my eyes shut and mouthed an obscenity. Why _was_ I making such a fuss out of everything? I mean, it's completely and totally logical to want a male accompanier to take me downstairs after what happened at the Emporium tonight! That fat-headed man disappeared from in front of our car, for God's sake! Any sensible woman would want someone to escort her into the eerily dark and quiet garage after that!

_God_, it's as if I were wanting him to _carry_ me down or something. Since when did I become such a flake?

Well. Anyway.

I turned and followed him back to the lift.

* * *

The lift's doors opened upon the, indeed, quite eerie and dreadfully dark garage. I led the way towards the door to the guest room, with Stu in tow. Our footsteps echoed bounds as we went.

As I put my hand to the knob, I whispered to Stu, "Thanks. And sorry, again, I jus - "

"No apologizing!" he whispered back, "Really! S'no trouble. Spooky down here, wot."

I laughed a little and began turning the handle. Well, I _did_ turn it, but more felt needed to be said. So I started, awkwardly, saying, "And again, I. Um. Sorry, also, for, um. Er. What happened, ah. During the show. I mean, before, ah, I'd asked to leave, when I. Um."

"Oh," said Stu. I sort of winced when he did, realizing how stupid I was sounding. Then he said, "Yeh, I. Ah."

"I mean, I just – I haven't. It's not that I… I mean, I _do_. Um. Not… What I meant, is, y'see. I - "

"I, yeh. I'm, um… Sorry, too, yeh. I just. Er."

_God_, this was awful!

"Ah." In the sourceless garage light, I could just barely see Stu's head hang. And he said, "I jus'. I jus' really… think… you're nice, Wiona."

I could hear the echoing tap of a rainwater leak hitting the pavement somewhere.

"Um." My hand slipped off the doorknob a little. There was a bit of movement in front of me, I think. "I, ah. Well, thank - "

Everything went hazy.

All the darkness turned to pink. I felt my eyelids shut.

I tasted things. Cigarettes, a bit. Something sweet, which was really pleasant.

I inhaled more sweetness. Suddenly, I remembered what the sweetness was called.

I think my arms moved, because I wanted them to. I wrapped them around, and around, and around. There were little explosions as the dam burst into a thousand, tiny, soundless colours.

I wasn't completely sure of my legs having moved, as the only clue to their movement was the feeling of backwards propulsion, which was followed by the breathless sensation of falling onto a soft, cushioned landing.

I was quite aware of the sort of things my fingers were doing, but I wasn't entirely in control of them. I felt the skin they grazed, and pressed upon, which was very smooth, and very warm. I felt the hair I'd been curious to touch for what felt like years but I knew were not at all, which was soft and entirely satisfying to finally have felt. I was also very well aware of what not _my_ fingers were doing but another longer, larger set were doing upon _my_ skin, and hair.

Stomachs pressed. I was aware in an almost dreamy sort of way of the removal of certain, superficial articles of clothing. And it was at this time that, internally, things began to spiral from extremely satisfied to frighteningly un-so.

'_What about you then, eh?'_

I was moderately aware of the removing of my shirt by hands other than my own.

'_I will forever and on hate all of you, your stupid thoughts…'_

Beneath my palms I could sense the rippling of a thin yet tight musculature beside the ridges of a spine.

'_If you were just honest about how you felt about things…_'

'_You amble in here and make yourself at home…'_

It was like tornadoes in the dam water. Things skittering. Dustdevils of debris in my head.

'_Don't worry, luv…'_

'_Are those walls of yours always this thick?'_

_It's time, Wiona. _

'_Don't worry, luv…'_

_It's time…_

'_I've got you…'_

'_Don't worry, luv…'_

_It's tiiiiiiime. _

_You're out of – _

_It's time! _

_It's time! _

_It's time!_

"Stop it!"

… Everything stopped.

The swirling, the noise… everything. It was gone. All of it, gone.

I gulped for air. Slowly, my consciousness resurfaced. My pulse was racing laps.

"What is it?" he whispered.

I kept on gasping. "I'm… I'm sorry, I don't… I…"

He shushed me. I squeezed my eyes shut again and willed my heart to slow itself. I put my hands over my eyes. This was too much… I couldn't take all this… I was going mad.

He lay down by my side and touched my neck. My check. My hair. Softly, he pulled my head in close and pressed his lips against my forehead; against each of my eyes; the arcs of my cheeks.

In the absence of the noise, the silence in my head now worried me. My very skin felt too-exposed. I felt so childish and stupid. I felt so _raw_.

I hated myself for not letting this happen… Why was I _doing this?_

I felt him press his forehead against mine. He curved his hand round the back of my neck and rubbed his thumb along my cheek, slowly.

Despite the relentless pounding of my pulse, I let myself be lulled. My breath came in large, even segments.

And, despite everything, it was like this that I fell into sleep.

* * *

I would write something more profound here, but I'm watching Tru Blood... Ha. Chapter 11 coming soon~!

~ n.t.


End file.
